


Souvenirs

by Lassenby



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Road Trip, but some of it is, idk - Freeform, not as light hearted and fun as you'd expect :-(, some vague porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 01:46:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 40,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8125702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lassenby/pseuds/Lassenby
Summary: “What family? We're just a bunch of jerks stuck on this crappy dust ball together.”“That's pretty much the exact definition of family.”





	1. Stuck In The Middle With You

“A week?” Rocket exploded. “S.H.I.E.L.D seriously expects us to stay on this stinkin' backward planet for a whole week?”

“Hey, watch it,” Quill said. “This stinking backward planet is my home. And we don't have a choice. The Milano is completely busted, and it's going to take a week to get the parts delivered.”

Rocket Raccoon sprang to his feet, bouncing a little on the cheap motel mattress. He pointed an accusatory finger at Peter Quill, who was leaning in the doorway with his arms crossed.

“You didn't even try to talk 'em down, did you? You're happy we're stuck here!”

“Quill is not the one who got the ship shot down,” Gamora reminded.

“You're never gonna let me live that down, are ya? And why is the parts shipment gonna take so long? We're the kratuckin' Guardians of the Galaxy!”

“Earth is an uncontacted planet,” Quill said. “Most humans don't even believe in aliens, and S.H.I.E.L.D tries to keep that stuff on a need-to-know basis. A delivery ship can't fly right up to the planet.”

“ _We_ did.”

“And that's why we got shot down!” Quill pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “Listen. I'll talk to S.H.I.E.L.D again, but I got the impression they're already doing everything they can to get us out of here. It seems like they didn't want the four—sorry, five—of us wandering around on their planet. I can't imagine why.”

From where his pot sat on the bedside table, Groot yawned beatifically and stretched his limbs. Other than being a little tired, he seemed no worse for wear.

While the Milano had been spinning out of the sky, sirens shrieking and emergency lights flashing, Rocket had wrapped himself around the sapling in a protective embrace. _Now we're even,_ he'd shouted above the roar of air rushing past through the ship's breached hull.

While Rocket had suffered bumps, bruises, and a few singed whiskers, Groot had been entirely unharmed. It was the one thing Rocket was grateful for. He smiled, and the tiny flora colossus smiled back sleepily.

“This planet does produce a foul odor,” Drax said. He sat on the other bed, his weight bowing the mattress in the middle. “Is that why you refer to it as a 'stinking backward planet'?”

“That's just the motel. The rest of the planet smells a lot better,” Quill said. “Well, most of it. I'd steer clear of any Arby's bathrooms.”

“I do not know who 'Arby' is, but I will decline the use of his toilets."

“Great. Alright, I'm gonna head back to re-negotiate. Wish me luck.”

“I'll go with you,” Gamora said, standing up from where she'd been sitting cross-legged on the floor. “To assist in the negotiation. As Rocket said before, you are not unbiased. No offense.”

“You think I'm trying to keep us stuck here, too? How am I supposed to not take offense to that?”

Gamora simply stared Quill down with an even look, hands on her hips, until Quill sighed.

“Fine, you can come.”

“Don't let those S.H.I.E.L.D bastards lowball us, Gammy,” Rocket said.

But when they opened the door to leave, someone blocked them in the doorway: the balding, stubble-cheeked, hollow eyed motel manager, a fist still raised to knock on the door which had just been swung open. His mouth was open as if he'd intended to say something, but hung slack in a fish's gawp. His bulging eyes fixated on Rocket.

“You okay, man?” Quill asked.

When the man didn't reply, Quill looked at Rocket, then back at the man with a confused expression.

“That thing was talking,” the man said, pointing a trembling finger at Rocket. “I heard it!”

Again, Quill looked back and forth between the man and Rocket. “You high, man? No judgment. I party, too.”

“This ain't no trip! There's a-”

“Oh, I know!” Quill clapped a hand on the man's shoulder, making him jump. “Are you seeing a talking raccoon? Because I think I got some of that same bad batch about a week ago. That guy stuck around for days.”

“Huh,” the man said. “Obviously, I ain't on no drugs or nothin'. But, uh, your trip. Was the raccoon wearin' clothes?”

“Totally, yes.”

“Big, ugly motherfucker, with bushy white eyebrows?”

“You're not such a looker, yourself,” Rocket growled.

“That's the one,” Quill said, with a snap of his fingers. “Same raccoon, exactly!”

The man shook his head disbelievingly. “I gotta get back on the wagon. The shit kids cook up these days is too much for me.”

“Yep, I know exactly what you mean,” Quill said, pushing past the man with Gamora in tow. “Hey, while I got you, can we get an air freshener or something in there? Because-”

Then the door clicked shut, and all Rocket could hear was the muffled hurr-hurring of Quill's words. Soon they were out of earshot entirely.

Rocket sighed, his ears drooping. The motel room, with two single beds and a cot which had been dragged in, reeked. The stench of smoke had soaked into everything. Mold crawled up the walls, and water damage splotched the ceiling. A single window overlooked the parking lot, currently obscured by bent up slatted blinds.

Would they really have to stay here the whole week? Since Earth was an unapproached planet, Rocket didn't hold out hope that any better lodgings would take their creds. He had no idea what kind of currency they used on Earth.

Rocket dragged his bag up on the bed with a grunt of effort. His pack was nearly as large as himself.

“I can't believe S.H.I.E.L.D ran us out of our own ship. Who do these humies think they are?” Rocket grumbled. “They barely let me figure out what needed fixing before they kicked us out on our butts.”

“They did allow us to retrieve our possessions,” Drax said.

“One measly bag each. You know how many guns I had to leave behind? Bet you those humies are gonna steal my stuff while I'm gone.”

Rocket had been rummaging through his bag while he complained, pulling out items and tossing them onto the bed behind him, but now he reached the bottom of the bag without finding what he was looking for.

“No way I forgot the da'st thing. It's the only pillow that doesn't bend my ears funny.”

He eyeballed Drax's bag sitting at the foot of the other bed. All the packs S.H.I.E.L.D issued to them looked the same; he might have stuffed his pillow in the wrong one by accident. Rocket wriggled over the side of the bed and dropped to the floor.

As he unzipped the other bag, Drax frowned.

“Do not touch my things,” he said.

Rocket waved dismissively. “I ain't after your crummy things. I'm just looking for my pillow. What did you pack, anyway? I never see you doin' anything.”

Drax stood up and started over to stop him, but not before Rocket pulled a tattered, dog-eared magazine out of the bag.

“What's this?”

“That belongs to me. Return it,” Drax ordered, reaching out to grab it.

But Rocket was too fast. He scrambled out of reach and onto the bed, where he flopped back against the cardboard-quality motel pillows.

“You got good taste,” Rocket said, favoring the magazine cover with an appreciative leer. The page showed a nude Krylonian woman, big busted and even wider hipped, given only the barest modesty by the magazine's title—PINK—in block letters over her crotch.

Groot tried to peer over Rocket's shoulder, so Rocket turned his pot around to face the wall. “Sorry, pal. This stuff's not for saplings.”

“It is not for rodents, either.” Drax tore the magazine out of Rocket's hands.

“What are you even doing with porn?” Rocket asked. “I never thought of you as a man with needs.”

“I have many needs. I must sleep, eat for nutritional sustenance, drink-”

“You _know_ what I mean.”

After a hesitation, Drax nodded. “Yes. I feigned misunderstanding because I wished to avoid the question. But, I am a virile adult male. I do have...desires.”

Drax turned away, and Rocket sprang up. He clambered up the man's back and leaned over his shoulder to pluck the magazine back out of his unsuspecting grip. This time he hurried further away, springing off one bed to sit down on the other.

“What do you need porn for? You could have any woman you want. You're a Guardian now. Flark, you probably don't even need the title. Look at you!” Rocket gestured to Drax.

Drax stared down at himself, then looked back up, perplexed. Rocket rolled his eyes.

“You gotta be acting obstin-tuse on purpose. I mean, you're good looking. Ladies must throw themselves at you all the time.”

“If you are implying that females must frequently proposition me, you are correct. But I have little interest in copulating with them.”

Rocket flipped the magazine open to the center spread, where the photo was of a spread of another sort. He held it up to show Drax.

“Are you tryin' to tell me that if walked into your quarters and saw her in your bed, you'd turn her away?”

“Yes.”

With a hmph of acknowledgment, Rocket paged through to another girl, this one with a more muscular build. “Is she more your type?”

Drax's hand struck out to snatch the magazine, but Rocket pulled it out of reach. With a heavy sigh, Drax sat down beside Rocket. His weight see-sawed Rocket's butt clear off the bed. He had to scramble away to avoid sliding into the crater and being smooshed against Drax's side.

“I have devoted my life to avenging my family. I do not think I will ever be intimate with anyone again. But if I were to take a partner-”

“Now we're talkin'!” Rocket said, grinning.

“-They would have be someone very different from Hovat. No being in the universe could compare to her.”

“I get that. Your wife was in a different league, so now you gotta play a whole other sport.”

“I do not understand what athletics have to do with this conversation.”

“Never mind. Tell me more about your hypothetical dream-gal.”

“Not a 'gal'. Perhaps a male.”

Rocket's ears twitched. “No kidding? You play for both teams?”

“I do not play for any team. And I am confused as to why you keep changing the topic to athletics, when you are the one who-”

“I'm gonna stop you right there. So, a guy. Someone shredded, like you? Or what?”

“I have always been partial to those of a shorter stature. Have I ever told you that Hovat was quite diminutive? When she stood before me, the top of her head barely rose to my sternum.” Drax smiled wistfully. “She was fierce, however. So much fighting spirit in such a small woman!”

“Chest high, huh? She was practically a gnome,” Rocket said, rolling his eyes. He himself barely stood as high as Drax's waist.

“Additionally, I would prefer to partner with someone I have known for some time. It is difficult, for me to get to know people, and to allow them to know me.”

“That narrows it down. Do you even have any friends?” Rocket asked. “Not to be rude or nothin', but you talk to anyone besides us.”

Drax glared at him for a long moment before standing, making the mattress spring back up so Rocket tumbled over. “It does not matter. I am loyal to the memory of Hovat, and I believe that being intimate with anyone else would cause me feelings of immense guilt.”

Rocket was flipping through the magazine again when Drax yanked it away.

“Hey! I was looking at that.”

“I request that you not tell the others about this material.”

“I might be an animal, but I'm no rat,” Rocket said.

It was late, and soon Rocket was sprawled out on one of the beds with Groot's pot in his arms, pinned to the mattress by the weight of boredom and sleepiness. Even the stiff pillow couldn't keep his eyes from drooping shut. His thoughts drifted.

He wondered when Quill and Gamora would get back, and if they would strike a better deal. He wondered if S.H.I.E.L.D would steal his crap from the ship. He wondered what that obnoxious sound was, the wailing which rose from the parking lot.

He wondered if, during those nights on the Milano, when he'd lain awake long into the night and eventually decided to jerk off, if Drax had been doing the same in his own quarters, with only one thin wall between them. He wondered about that last with an unexpected flicker of arousal.

Rocket sank into sleep, and became mired almost immediately in a nightmare.

 


	2. The Things We Do for Love

Rocket hung suspended in a liquid filled tube. Glass walls rose up all around him, impenetrable and catastrophically close. Thick, viscous gel filled his mouth. Rubber tubes pumped air through his nostrils, but they didn't make him feel any less like he was drowning. A terrified shout left his mouth as bubbles.

Scientists peered into the tank at him. Their faces were twisted, distorted by the liquid and thick glass. One of them pointed.

Rocket's eyes snapped open.

The grotesquely deformed scientists were gone, replaced by Quill's frowning face. “You okay? You were thrashing around a lot.”

Rocket groaned and sat up. The ports on his back ached, a residual bone-deep soreness stirred up by the memory of the tank. A musty, unpleasant odor of mold filled his nose.

The door leading to the small bathroom was shut, but Rocket could hear the shower's hiss through the paper thin walls. That wailing began again from the parking lot; a vehicle alarm. Its high pitched 'ree-ree-ree!' bored into Rocket's brain.

“Out of one nightmare and back into another,” he muttered.

“You wanna talk about it?” Quill asked. “I used to have pretty bad nightmares-”

“What I wanna talk about is getting off this dirtball. Did S.H.I.E.L.D say they could get the parts any faster?”

Quill hesitated.

“C'mon, Pete, gimme some good news,” Rocket begged.

“Look. They were firm on the week. That's the quickest they can get clearance for a shipment of alien ship parts through the legal channels. But-”

“-This better be a good 'but',” Rocket said. “It had better be the most beautiful, shapely but in the whole galaxy.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D gave us an allowance, so we won't be crammed into this crappy little cardboard box all week. Enough for our own rooms in a much nicer hotel, and expenses for food and whatever we need.”

“Oh. Well, that ain't so bad, I guess.”

“Right? That's what I thought! It'll pretty much be just like a vacation. And I was thinking, on this vacation, we _could_ hole up in our own hotel rooms, barely seeing each other when we pass in the hall on our way to the ice machine, OR-”

“I don't like this conjunction, Pete. What about 'but'? That was a good conjunction. Let's go back to but.”

“OR-” Pete continued. “We could spend all the money to rent something that will bring us together as a team. It might be a little less comfortable, but, I promise, it'll be way more fun.”

The bathroom door opened and Drax stepped out, holding a towel around his waist with one hand and Groot's pot in the other. Groot looked dewy and refreshed.

“I hope you do not mind, but I have watered our friend Groot. Also, I have showered. The water pressure seems to be calibrated for a feeble child, or perhaps an extremely elderly person. I found it most unsatisfying.”

“Forget the shower,” Quill said. “That's the last time you'll have to use it. Come on, I wanna show you something.”

Drax yanked on a pair of pants, but not before dropping the towel without warning, making Rocket turn away with a blush burning under his fur. With Groot carried in Rocket's arms, they followed Quill out to the parking lot.

The first thing Rocket noticed was the vehicle, so large it dwarfed the other cars in the lot. Gamora leaned against what Rocket assumed was the front of the gargantuan vehicle. When she saw them coming, she stood up and put one hand on her hip, her elbow stuck out awkwardly, and contorted her face into a stiff, forced grin. With her other hand, she gestured to the vehicle.

“Your new, slightly used RV!” she said, clearly making an effort to sound enthusiastic. She added flatly; “What was the point of that? I feel foolish. Quill? Are you crying?”

“No,” Quill said quickly, though his voice was suspiciously thick. “I'm just...look, I wanted one of these since I was a kid. I always thought it would be awesome to go on a road trip across the States. But we were a single income family, and money was tight, so- It's not important. Because now we've got an RV!”

“What the flark is an RV, Quill?” Rocket said, ears flattened. “And how much did this monstrosity cost us?”

Quill walked over to open the door. “Welcome to your new home. Well, for this week, anyway. Come on, check it out.”

Gamora must have already seen, because only Drax and Rocket wandered over, climbed the step up into the doorway, and peered inside.

There was a living quarters in there, if a small one. A table with benches to sit at, just long enough for all the Guardians to fit at, as long as they didn't mind squeezing together, and a sofa on the wall across from it. A tiny kitchen nook. Further back, a curtain had been slid open to reveal a standing shower and toilet. On the other side was a bunk-bed, and beyond, at the back of the truck, another space partitioned off by a curtain, which was dominated by a slightly larger bed.

Every surface was covered by an ugly laminate printed to look like dark wood. The cupboard handles, window latches and other accents were a yellowish, brassy metal.

Rocket craned around to glare at Quill. “Where's the rest of it? Because there's not krutackin' way we're all going to cram in this thing all week.”

“That's part of the fun,” Quill said, ushering them deeper into the van. “It'll be a bonding experience.”

“If I hadn't left my soldering torch on the ship, I'd bond your head to your ass,” Rocket snarled.

“I also have concerns that this space is unsuitable for habitation,” said Drax. He would have to tuck his shoulders in to sidle through some of the doorways.

“We should give it a try,” Gamora said.

“See? She gets it. Hang on, let me give you the tour,” Quill said.

“Gammy, you can't be serious! What did Quill offer you to take his side? I'll match whatever he's paying you,” Rocket said.

Quill was excitedly pointing out the features of the RV, taking no notice of Rocket and Gamora's hissed argument. Gamora shot a glance in his direction to be make sure he wasn't listening.

“This means a lot to him,” she said more quietly. “You heard what he said, about having always wanted to do this. You and I cannot get back the childhoods that were stolen from us. But we have a chance to give this to our friend, Peter Quill. Can you not 'suck it up' for his sake?”

Rocket was about to argue, but then Groot twisted around to look up at him with huge, dark, pleading eyes. The sapling held his hands together, his tendril-thin fingers twisting together, as if to beg.

“I am Groot?”

“Ungrateful twig. You know I can't say no to you.” Rocket sighed. “Alright! Let's get this shit-show on the road.”

 


	3. Slow Ride

A few hours later, Quill was driving. The rest of the Guardians had crammed into the dining nook. Drax sat with his shoulders hunched, leaning far over the table to consider his hand of cards. They were trying to play an Earth game called 'Go Fish' that Quill had taught them. But every time the RV turned or bumped over a pothole, the cards slid onto the floor, prompting a swearing, stomping hissyfit from Rocket.

Groot's pot sat in Rocket's lap. The sapling was trying to pull himself high enough to peer over the edge of the table.

Guitars whined over the speakers. _Slow ride! Take it easy! Slow ride!_ Quill had bought a new CD ('Like a cassette, but not as cool,' he'd explained) at a Terran fueling station. The jewelcase proudly proclaimed: 'Super Hits of the '70s! The 20 greatest songs of the decade.'

“I should tell you guys, in the interest of full disclosure, the RV ate into our budget a little bit. But don't worry. S.H.E.I.L.D was more than than generous. As long as we don't spend the whole week sucking down caviar, we should be fine.”

“I'd suck down pretty much anything right now,” Rocket said. “I'm starving.”

“We have to eat at a diner,” Quill decided. “That's an essential part of the road-trip experience. Keep your eyes peeled for big neon signs that say 'DINER', or anything that looks like a boxcar.”

When they pulled up to a stoplight, and Drax leaped up. “There!” he said, jabbing a finger at something outside the passenger's side window.

Quill craned around to see what he was pointing at. “Nope.”

“That is where I wish to dine. The image above the name of the restaurant is most appetizing. I would very much like to eat that creature.”

“What? That's not a menu, man, that's the mascot. And I don't think they'll let us in.”

“No-one would be foolish enough to turn away Drax the Destroyer away from their establishment!” Drax roared.

“Come on, Quill,” Rocket snapped. “Just give the baby his bottle.”

Quill sighed and turning into the parking lot.

“Who is this baby in need of a bottle?” Drax asked, looking around the RV. “Does Groot require sustenance?”

Quill parked, and the four of them piled out of the van. (Groot opted to stay behind so he could sun himself in the RV's window.) A costumed man stood outside the restaurant doors. He wore blue jeans, a purple shirt, and the enormous mascot head of a cartoon mouse. Rocket rankled at the sight. “Can you believe this guy? Is he trying to piss me off? That's just insulting.”

Quill shushed him. When they reached the door, the mascot held up a hand to stop them from going inside.

“Sorry. No adults allowed inside without a child.”

Rocket had been tagging along in the rear, but now Quill reached behind to put a hand on Rocket's back and push him to the front. Rocket staggered forward. He glared up at Quill, then at the bouncer.

“This is my son, Rock- uh, Rocky. He's got that werewolf disease. You know what I'm talking about? The one that makes you grow hair all over.”

“Sir, this is obviously a raccoon wearing human clothing.”

“Who you callin' a raccoon?” Rocket snarled. “I wouldn't be so quick to throw stones if I were a grown man dressed like a rat.”

If the man registered surprise, there was no way to tell through the foam head. He did pause for a moment. When he spoke, he seemed to be trying to do an impression—probably of the cartoon mouse mascot—but his voice was noticeably shaky.

“S-sorry, little dude. That was my bad! Come on inside, and I hope you have an awesome time.”

“Whatever,” Rocket grumbled, leading the way through the automatic doors.

Behind him, he heard Quill talking to the bouncer. “That was really uncool, man. He's super sensitive about his condition. This is gonna mess him up.”

“I am so, so sorry,” the bouncer whispered. “Obviously we'll comp your meal and as many tokens as you want. Please don't tell my manager.”

Quill grinned when the automatic doors whooshed shut behind them.

“It's a good thing that just happened,” he said. “Because this place gets really expensive, and we're pretty much broke.”

“What?” Gamora demanded.

“Nothing. It's not important. Hey, did I tell you about the games?”

Air conditioning blasted inside the restaurant. The pungent smells of grease, sweat, and plastic overpowered Rocket's senses, while the excited shouts of children made his ears twitch. A purple carpet molded from some kind of foam pulp, flecked with rainbow spots, extended out to a chipped plastic counter, behind which cheap children's toys were displayed. A teenager with a fast-food complexion and a bored look on his pebbly face stood behind the counter.

From the dining area off to their left, a group was singing. “Clap your hands! Now stomp your feet! You're a birthday star, here at Chuck E. Cheeeeese!”

Quill strode up to the counter. When he returned, he balanced leaning stacks of paper cups in each hand. He lowered one of the cups down to Rocket, who took it and peered inside. Gleaming coins filled the cup halfway.

“Money?” he asked.

“Even better. Money that you can only use in this arcade. Oh, and this is for you.” Quill had something tucked under his arm, which he now pulled out and held open toward Drax. It was a purple shirt, emblazoned with an image of Chuck E Cheese over one breast. “They said they can't let us in if you're not wearing a shirt, werewolf kid or not.”

“I will comply with this Terran custom,” Drax said. “Only because I am eager to feast on 'peet-zah'.”

The shirt proved to be too small, and nearly ripped up the side when Drax yanked it down. It covered his naval, but barely, leaving the hard lines of his hip bones exposed. His pectorals were outlined prominently through the taut fabric.

“I'll go ask for a larger size,” Quill said.

Drax grabbed his shoulder to stop him. “There is no need. I believe this garment compliments my figure satisfactorily.”

Inside the arcade, Rocket's senses were swamped again. Machines clanged and flashed with bright neon lights, sucking down coins and spitting out tickets as they shouted catchy slogans over the screams of Terran children. Quill led Rocket to one of the machines and rolled four tokens into its slots.

“Here,” he said, thrusting a plastic blaster into Rocket's hands.

“I feel like an idiot, holding this d'ast toy.”

“Come on, Rocket! They're killing us,” Quill shouted. He'd fallen into a shooter's stance and held his blaster aimed toward the machine.

On the screen, a squadron of heavily armed humies were blasting away back at him.

Rocket hefted his own blaster. “Nobody shoots at my sort-of friends except me!”

He pulled the trigger, and the blaster jumped in his grip. Rocket hooted appreciatively at the realistic recoil. The simulated combat was surprisingly fun, especially since he hadn't experienced the stomach twisting thrill of dodging real blaster fire in weeks.

Soon Rocket's maniacal laughter rose above the sea of arcade noise as he blew away wave after wave of soldiers, tanks, and swarms of carnivorous nano-bugs. He was so absorbed in the game that when something slammed into the screen in front of him, it startled him so bad that he dropped his gun.

“What the flark!”

The object rolled across the ground and stopped at Rocket's feet. The decapitated head of some kind of Terran rodent stared back at Rocket, its lifeless eyes flashing in the colorful lights. Rocket recoiled.

“I whacked that mole into next cycle,” Gamora bragged.

Quill dropped his gun and hurried over to a machine with the words 'WHACK-A-MOLE' spanning across it, its lights flickering and buzzing. One of the holes on the top was spitting sparks. Gamora leaned against the machine, a mallet proudly swung over her shoulder.

Looking left and right, Quill grabbed her shoulder. “Great job! But I need to talk to you, uh, over there,” he said hurriedly as he rushed her away from the scene of the crime.

Without Quill to anchor him, Rocket felt a little lost in the sea of Terrans. He wandered around, dodging the sticky, outstretched fingers of children, until he heard a familiar booming laugh.

Rocket followed the laughter to its source. He found Drax playing a game on a machine which blasted tinny, upbeat music from its speakers. As Drax stomped along to the beat, a directional pad lit up in rainbow colors beneath his feet. His Terran opponent, a kid barely taller than Rocket, seemed to be holding his own, if the on-screen compliments (Great! Perfect!) were any indication. The sign on the machine proclaimed that the game was called 'Dance Dance Revolution'.

Rocket watched Drax for awhile. Unlike the kid next to him, who stood relatively still while his feet tapped out the controls, Drax put his whole body into it. Sweat shone on the small of his back, exposed by the too-small shirt riding up. His muscles rippled and flexed.

When the song ended, Drax jumped down from the platform. Rocket blinked as though coming out of a trance.

“That was invigorating. I do not know what a Barbie girl is, and I fail to see the appeal in brushing her hair or undressing her everywhere as she demands, but I do enjoy her music.”

“That's great, big guy,” Rocket said, unable to fight his own grin, which threatened to match Drax's. “So, Gamora murdered a robot rat, and now she and Quill are on the run. I was thinkin'...”

Rocket trailed off as the gleam of gold from a nearby machine had caught his eye. Within a swarm of cartoon mascots, the sign said 'Boulder's Dozers'.

A clear plastic box encased two shelves. The shelves were covered, laden, overloaded, absolutely heaped with tokens. On the upper shelf, half a dozen shovels worked back and forth. Below, the coins brimmed over the edge of the second shelf, mounded each other, threatening to fall into the slot below at the slightest provocation.

Although Rocket reminded himself that the currency was worthless outside of this place, he felt drawn to machine almost by magnetic force.

“Can you believe nobody's playing this thing?” Rocket said, his whiskers twitching with greed. “The tokens are so close to the edge! They'd fall over if someone so much as breathed on them.”

“It is a mystery to me as well,” Drax agreed.

After feeding a few tokens into the machine, watching the 'dozers' push them over the top shelf, only for them to join the sea of tokens beneath without knocking any loose, Rocket began to understand why nobody else was playing. But dogged persistence drove him to try again until he was sweating and gripping the edge of the machine with white-knuckled anger.

“Flark this thing! What a scam,” Rocket said. He tried to shake the machine angrily, but he couldn't budge it.

Drax was staring longingly at the dancing game. “Perhaps we should do something else.”

“No way. I ain't letting this hunk of metal beat me.” Rocket tugged on Drax's pant leg, then climbed up to the man's shoulder. “Shake this thing for me,” he ordered conspiratorially into Drax's ear.

“I believe that is against the rules.”

“Since when do you care about rules?”

“When I became a Guardian of the Galaxy, I agreed to certain terms. Also, what you wish me to do is not in the spirit of fair play.”

“Fair, shmair! I've pumped twenty tokens into this thing and it hasn't coughed up nothin'. Is that fair?”

Drax crossed his arms and didn't move to help.

Rocket sighed. “Look, you want the truth? I'd rather ask Groot. If he was still big, I could. Groot used to be my arms. My strength. You know? Without him...or, with him being a sapling, it makes me realize how small I really am. It makes me feel helpless.”

“You are trying to make me feel pity for you, so that I will help you rob this children's game.”

“Pretty much, yeah. Is it working?”

Drax's eyed narrowed as he considered. “You are a very small creature, with no upper body strength to speak of. That is unfortunate.”

“Exactly! And a giant pile of fake creds would probably make me feel better about being a pathetic, disgusting little monster. So what are we waiting for?”

“You are not pathetic, nor are you a monster. And you most certainly do not disgust me.” Drax paused. “Although, as I mentioned, you are quite little.”

Rocket papped his bald head with one palm. “Yeah, yeah, don't rub it in. Are you gonna help me with this or not? 'cos if you don't, I'll find some freakishly huge humie kid to do it.”

Drax stepped forward, grabbed the sides of the machine and wrenched it hard from side to side. The coins sloshed, and for a moment they only leaned further over the edge. Then Drax jerked the machine forward with a grunt of effort, and the sea of tokens cascaded over the edge in a glorious golden waterfall.

Rocket cackled as he leaped down to receive his ill-gotten riches. “Woohoo! Thanks, big guy. Hold out your shirt, will ya?”

Scooping out tokens by the handful, Rocket dropped them into Drax's shirt, which he held out by the hem to form a kind of makeshift fanny-pack. When the shirt bulged with tokens and Rocket had scraped the last of his “winnings” from the slot, he stood up.

“We got enough here to play a hundred games of Dance your Butt Off, or whatever it's called. But let's get some pizza first.”

* * *

The dining area turned out to be another cavernously large room. Instead of laboring over arcade machines, here the Terran children howled from booths, faces smeared with pizza sauce and cake frosting. Nearby, towering over everything and twisting all the way up to the ceiling, was a structure composed of opaque plastic tubes interspersed with clear 'windows', connected in several places by slides and ladders.

“What the hell is that?” Rocket wondered aloud, staring up at the monstrosity in between bites of pizza.

“I believe it is a play-structure for the children.”

A chill rippled down Rocket's spine. The tubes, with their visible rivets and bright colors, were nothing like the sterile tank which had contained Rocket during his formative years, but somehow he couldn't help but compare them. The joyful screams of children at play could too easily be confused for terror.

“Perhaps Earth is not such a stinking, primitive planet,” Drax considered, folding a wedge of pizza in half and stuffing the whole thing into his mouth. “Their food is most excellent.”

Gamora materialized at the end of their table, her sudden appearance making Rocket jump.

“I wish to apologize in advance,” she said mysteriously.

“What for?” Rocket asked.

“I tried to tell him that it was a bad idea, but you know how Quill is.”

“Okay, don't tell me. I don't want to know.”

“Hey! You guys liking the food?” Peter said as he hurried up to their booth. He clutched a bag in both arms. As Rocket watched, the bag squirmed.

“What'cha got there, Pete?” he asked.

“Picked you up a souvenir. Want to try and guess what it is?”

The bag squirmed again. This time, the sounds of scratching and scrabbling claws could be heard against the vinyl.

“Anything but a pet,” Rocket begged. He gestured toward Drax, who had slapped together two slices of pizza like a sandwich and was going to town. “We already have this guy eating us out of house and home. The last thing we need is a pet.”

“Well, you're in luck, because it's not a pet. It's a little brother.”

Quill unzipped the bag with a flourish, and a furry gray and black face peered out. Dark, fearful eyes blinked. Then the raccoon leaped out of the bag. It landed on the table, where it slipped over pizza and bumped over sodas, all the time chittering threats at the Guardians.

“Quill, you d'ast idiot! What were you thinking, bringing this thing in here?”

Quill laughed. “Sorry. It was kind of a rescue mission.”

“An employee in the alleyway threatened to cull the creature if he ever found it digging through the dumpster again,” Gamora explained.

Drax had grabbed the raccoon and was attempting to keep it from running away. Although it twisted around and savagely bit his knuckles, Drax smiled. “I like this creature. It has a warrior's spirit.”

“What were you two even doing in the alley?” Rocket asked.

Gamora's cheeks flushed a muddy orange hue. “I don't see how that is of any relevance. We should get this creature back into the bag and release it somewhere safe.”

But as Drax lifted the raccoon toward the open bag, it picked that moment to do a flip out of his hands. It landed on the floor and scampered off, bee-lining toward the playplace. It disappeared into the opening of an enclosed slide.

“This is great,” Rocket howled. “Just flipping fantastic! Now there's a filthy animal wandering around in there, probably biting a bunch of whiny Terran brats.”

“Someone's gotta go after it. One-two-three not it!” Quill said.

“The only one of us small enough to fit in there is Rocket,” Gamora pointed out.

“Right, so it's gotta be him,” Quill said. “Good luck, man. I know you can do it.”

“You're all useless.”

Rocket bent down to peer into the slide. The raccoon was nowhere in sight, having already scurried deeper inside. The sight of that dark confinement made Rocket's heart leap into his throat, and his breath came in harsh gasps. But what could he do? He was a Guardian of the Galaxy, and the wimpy little Terrans who played in this stupid structure were part of that galaxy.

With a shudder rippling from tip to tail, Rocket crawled up the slide.

He sniffed to pick up the raccoon's scent against the backdrop of kid sweat and plastic. The scientists who'd reshaped his muzzle had messed up his sense of smell. It had been a unimportant price to pay, in their opinion, to make him capable of human speech. Despite Rocket's diminished senses, the raccoon reeked of fear, and that was easy enough to pick up.

Rocket crawled for long minutes through seemingly endless tracts of play-structure. After awhile, he wasn't sure if the fear stench was coming from the raccoon or from himself. He shook all over. Although the tubes were opaque and not glass, and despite the comforting solidity of plastic under his paws reminding him that he wasn't suspended in gel, the darkness felt like a thousand gloved hands reaching in.

When he crawled forward and found himself looking out of one of the clear 'window' sections, gazing down at the faces far below, twisted and distorted through the warped plastic, Rocket saw the faces of scientists instead of his friends far below.

Rocket didn't know he'd stopped moving. He didn't know that he'd crouched down in the tube with his lips drawn up past his gums, body rigid, eyes wide and unseeing. He didn't know anything at all, until something lightly bumped his nose.

He blinked. There was the raccoon, staring back with dark, dewy eyes, its whiskers twitching curiously.

Rocket opened his mouth to say something—probably something like 'Come here, buddy, let's get out of here so I can turn your worthless hide into a hat'—but instead of words, he only produced a chittering sound.

The raccoon chirped back. It folded around in the plastic tube and waddled forward. After a few steps, it looked back to make sure Rocket was following.

Rocket's limbs felt stiff, nearly frozen. It took a great deal of effort to even inch forward. He managed another inch. Then another. Eventually, his joints seemed to unlock, allowing him to follow the raccoon more quickly.

Eventually the raccoon slipped down a slide and out of sight, and Rocket after it. He tumbled out into the Chuck E. Cheese dining area.

The raccoon had leaped back onto their table and was nibbling a piece of pizza. When it saw Rocket coming over, it twittered a greeting. The other Guardians were nowhere in sight. Rocket looked around and spotted Quill peering out from behind the partition of another booth.

Quill waved him over.

“What the heck are you doing over here?” Rocket asked as he slid into cover beside Quill.

“We didn't want to scare it off again,” he explained. “It took you long enough to get it out.”

“How long did you think it should take?” Rocket snapped. “You thought I was gonna pop in there and we would have a nice little chat? I might not have asked for it, but I'm a sentient person, Quill. I got about as much in common with that thing as you do.”

“Sorry, man, I didn't mean anything by it. I know you're not an animal.”

That wasn't exactly true: Rocket was an animal. Or he'd started out as one. Once, he'd been exactly the same as that dumb raccoon.

But it didn't seem fair to call the raccoon dumb. It had sensed Rocket's fear, found him in the tubes and led him safely. It had rescued him. The realization tied Rocket's stomach in knots. He didn't deserve an animal's innocent kindness. He didn't deserve to be saved.

He hadn't been able to do the same for its kin, when he'd had the chance.

“I guess we'd better get this guy back home. I'll sneak up and try to stuff him back in the bag.” Quill started to stand, but Rocket grabbed his coat.

“Wait,” Rocket said hurriedly. “I've, uh, been thinking about that. You said some guy was going to kill it if he caught it rummaging through the dumpster again? Well, you know this stupid thing is just gonna go right back there. Maybe we should take it with us.”

“You want to keep the raccoon?” Quill asked.

“Not forever. Just for awhile, until we find a better place to let it go. Somewhere it won't get itself murdered.”

Quill winked. “Sure thing, pal. Just for awhile.”

“Look,” Drax said. “The creature is washing its hands as though it were a person!”

The raccoon had sniffed at a puddle of soda, and now it was dunking its paws into the sticky liquid and rubbing them together.

“Soooooo cute,” Quill said.

“It is quite adorable,” Drax agreed.

“I don't see what's so special,” Rocket said. “I wash my hands almost every time I go to the bathroom, and you don't see me winning any medals for it.”

 


	4. Blinded by the Light

The sun had burned away, leaving only red embers smoldering on the horizon. The interstate stretched on forever ahead. On either side of the road, fields of wheat were interrupted only by a small orchard or a patch of other vegetables. An occasional farmhouse squatted in the distance.

As stars began to pierce the sky, Rocket yawned.

Groot, perched on the windowsill beside him, squeaked an echoing yawn and stretched his arms.

The raccoon was hiding. The moment they'd released it into the RV, it had scrambled into the safety of a kitchen cabinet, and had remained there in spite of Rocket's murmured reassurances.

The RV rumbled past a sign promising a truck stop in 5 miles.

“We'll stop for the night soon,” Quill said, his words bulging around a yawn. “We should have eaten somewhere with coffee instead of a kid's pizza place.”

“I enjoyed the pizza. Also, I am glad to have acquired this prize for my dancing skills.” Drax brandished a plastic sword with the easy movements of a warrior. When Drax pressed a button on the handle, the toy made a buzzing sound and lit up with a neon green glow. The sword's light tinted Drax's wide grin green.

“Hey, I won most of those tickets,” Rocket said, leaping down from his perch to retrieve his own plastic sword. He swung, and Drax raised his sword to block the blow. Their weapons met with cheap speaker's clash and a burst of red and green light.

Gamora scoffed from the top bunk. “Do you call that winning? I highly doubt the game of 'skeetball' was meant to be played by climbing onto the target and dropping balls into the 500 point receptacle.”

“If they didn't want me to cheat, they shouldn't have made the game so d'ast hard. Anyway, you can't complain. You got your share of the booty.”

With a small, sheepish smile, Gamora pulled her own light sword from beneath the pillow and lowered it over the side of her bunk to clash against theirs.

Soon they turned into the truck stop, parked, and ate dinner out of a vending machine. Around a bite of questionable chicken salad sandwich, Quill explained that since there were only three beds, two of them would have to share the larger one.

“Lemme guess; I have to share, 'cos I'm the smallest. Right?” Rocket asked.

“Actually, I was going to offer to share with Gamora,” Peter said.

Behind him, Gamora's face paled to a mint shade.

“I would like to volunteer, as well,” Drax said. “My stature would make it difficult for me to fit into a bunk. Perhaps Rocket and I could share the larger bed.”

Rocket groaned. “What did I say? I knew it. Being short makes a guy a real second class citizen around here.”

“What are you complaining about?” Quill said, swinging into the lower bunk with a sigh. “These beds are like cardboard. At least yours has a nice mattress.”

Rocket pulled aside the 'bedroom' curtain. When he flopped up onto the bed, he was surprised to find that Quill was right. The mattress was springy but firm under his back. He wriggled out of his shirt, tossed it on the floor, and sprawled out across the bedspread with a sigh.

He was relaxed for approximately three seconds before Drax barged in and elbowed him over, forcing him against the wall. Rocket oomphed and scrambled into a sitting position.

Before he could give Drax a piece of his mind, the man lowered Groot's pot into Rocket's lap. Groot smiled up at him with eyelids weighed down by sleepiness. Rocket smiled back. With a quick glance to make sure Quill and Gamora weren't paying attention, Rocket placed a quick peck on Groot's cheek before carefully placing his pot on the bedside shelf.

“Sleep good, pal.”

“You are very nurturing with him,” Drax said, surprising Rocket into a jolt. “I am surprised, though I should not be. Hovat was very much like you. She acted brusquely toward everyone else, but was sweet with Karima.”

“Not so loud. You want everyone to hear you?” Rocket clambered over Drax's massive frame to yank the privacy curtain shut.

“Nurturing is an admirable quality. You should not be ashamed.”

“I don't want nobody thinking I've gone soft, is all. They step on me enough as it is.”

“The others do not mean to tread upon you. Since you are low to the ground, it is sometimes hard to avoid.”

“I meant-”

“I know what you meant. You used metaphor to convey how you believe the others do not respect you. I understand. People often underestimate me, as well.”

Rocket didn't know what to say to that. He wondered how many times Drax knew what they meant but pretended ignorance to screw with them. Sure, his people were a literal race. But why had Rocket been so sure he couldn't learn? Because Drax had seemed like a gigantic, bloodthirsty idiot, probably.

Of course, that had been an incorrect assumption. Rocket knew him better, now.

With the buzzing florescent lights switched off, and the engine's rumbling ceased, Rocket's sensitive ears picked up a patchwork of other sounds. Insects sang stilted, staccato songs from the grass. A hunting bird cooed as it swooped over the RV. In the kitchen cabinet, the raccoon's claws scratched softly against particle board.

Groot nodded off. Rocket thought it was strange, the way the flora collosus could sleep upright, slouching only a little. But with his roots still drawing nutrients from the soil, he probably didn't have a choice.

Quill began snoring, and soon Gamora's softer exhalations joined his. Everyone had fallen asleep except for Rocket. He lay awake in fear of what nightmares would plague him if he dared to drop off.

“Are you awake?” Drax asked in a conspiratorial, sleepover whisper.

“Yeah. You?”

Drax rumbled with a chuckle.

“Oh, shaddup. I heard it,” Rocket said, swatting at the man's face. “Hey, I was thinking. Was Gamora acting weird earlier? About what she and Quill were doing in the alleyway?”

“She did turn a most peculiar hue.”

“I wonder if she's been hooking up with Quill. She put up a good fight, but I guess he finally wore her down.”

“It would not be surprising to me. When people live and work in close proximity with each other, feelings often develop.”

Rocket snorted. “Feelings is a strong word. What they're doing is prob'ly of a less emotional, more physical nature.”

The mattress bounced a little as something landed on the foot of the bed. Rocket propped himself up on one elbow to look. In the dark, all he could make out was two eyes glaring balefully back at him.

“Hey, buddy. The bed's already past capacity, but you can try to squeeze in.”

As if it understood, the raccoon lowered itself to lay on the blanket, its feet curled under itself. It rested its chin on the bedsheets, but its stare remained firmly fixed on Rocket.

With an amused huff, Rocket laid back down.

He couldn't stave off sleep forever. It had been a long day, and as the tension unwound from his muscles, Rocket felt himself fading from consciousness.

Rocket found himself strapped down to an operating table, paralyzed in the twilight of anesthesia: too groggy to fight, not deep enough under to escape from pain. In his bleary vision, the faces of surgeons waxed and waned overhead like unfeeling moons. Gleaming surgical tools were passed between rubber gloves slick with blood.

His blood!

Rocket opened his mouth to cry out for Groot. But he remembered, even asleep, that Groot couldn't save him. As a sapling, Groot was helpless.

A scalpel's blade arced down, and...

There was no pain. Instead of the blade's bite, something softly touched Rocket's side. A real touch: He focused on the sensation, and it led him back to consciousness.

Rocket blinked awake.

Strong fingers stroked the fur down his side. When the touch reached his hip, it lifted away and came to rest against his cheek. Rocket flinched. His whiskers twitched and his ears flattened. But there was no pressure behind the touch. Only gentleness, and when the fingers curled to scratch that sensitive spot behind his ear, Rocket melted.

What was Drax thinking, petting him like this? Rocket had allowed himself to be comforted this way once before, right after Groot had been shattered. But this...

In the dark, Rocket could barely make out the contours of Drax's face. His eyes were open but his expression was inscrutable.

Since Drax didn't say anything, Rocket didn't either. He couldn't help but be relaxed again by the man's strong fingers, stroking and scratching in divine turns. The raccoon at the foot of the bed, disturbed by its bedmates wakefulness, curled more tightly into a ball.

With a faint smile and a sigh of contentment, Rocket drifted off again. This time his sleep was mercifully free of dreams.

 


	5. Right Down the Line

Two men leaned against the wood railing, talking to each other in low voices. Even from the back, they looked tough. The kind of men who belonged at this backyard rodeo. Genuine cowboys.

Unlike Quill, who swaggered up in his spotless, scuffless boots, his chaps still stiff off the rack, a ten gallon hat, and a bolo tie gleaming at his throat.

“Howdy, Pardners,” Quill grinned at the two cowboys, tipping the brim of his hat in greeting. “Real nice roping out there today, huh?”

The men glared at Quill for a long moment, their eyes like ice. Without a word, they leaned up off the railing and shouldered by Quill. One hocked a wad of chewing tobacco on his boot as he passed.

Quill watched the men go, looking like a kicked puppy.

Groot leaned out of his pot to touch Quill's hand sympathetically. In a high, reedy voice, he squeaked; “I am Groot?”

Smiling weakly down at the flora colossus, Quill ruffled Groot's leaves. “Yeah, buddy. I am Groot.”

“What did you expect, Pete?” Rocket said, although he found himself gripped by infuriating pity. “You're dressed like a tourist and you're talking like a weirdo.”

“I'm talking like a cowboy,” Quill argued. “That's how cowboys talk!”

Gamora appeared beside the friends. She was holding a box full of greasy food and cans sweating condensation in the heat.

“I've brought what I am told are 'beers' and 'corndogs'.”

“Thanks,” Quill said, taking what looked like a lumpy turd on a stick. He ripped off a huge bite, glaring at where the two cowboys who'd spurned him leaned a little further down the fence. “Gamora, those dudes were mean to me.”

Gamora leaned over to look. “Would you like me to kick their heads off?”

“No! Well, maybe. I haven't decided.”

Since the last bucking bronco had been roped and led away, nothing much was happening in the ring. Now a microphone crackled like a cleared throat. Booming over the speakers, the announcer introduced the bull riding competition was about to start.

“First up's a new face, with no rides under his belt to speak of,” the voice drawled. “But he said he was gonna ride this bull whether we put him in the event or not, and to be honest, folks, I ain't sure we could have stopped him. So give a warm welcome to Drax the Destroyer!”

Rocket scrambled up the fence to get a better view over the railing.

Inside the ring, a huge black bull burst from the gate. Drax straddled its back and clutched a rope at its neck with one hand. The bull whipped around in a tight circle, lunging and kicking with bullet hard muscles rippling. Drax bounced wildly in the saddle but he managed to keep hold.

His joyful “AHHHH!” could be heard even over the explosive spectating of the crowd.

“That's eight seconds,” The announcer called, sounding surprised even over the low quality sound system. “That's eligibility!”

Barely a second later, though, the bull twisted hard enough to throw his rider. Drax was hurled down to the dust. He landed hard on his shoulder and bounced onto his back. Free of the weight on its back, the bull stopped bucking, but its wide eyes rolled until they fell on the downed rider. It lowered its head and threatened with a thrust of its long, pointed horns.

Two cowboys dressed even more goofy than Quill, with faces painted in bright colors and feathered plumes sticking out of their hats, swung over the fence and dropped into the ring. They rushed toward the bull, shouting and waving their hands.

“Rodeo clowns,” Quill explained. “They distract the bull so it doesn't gore the rider.”

When Drax sprang back to his feet, screaming a battle cry, the clowns recoiled.

Drax rushed forward, straight at the bull. He grabbed its horns before it could react, laughing like a maniac in its face. The powerful muscles in the bull's neck flexed. It stamped forward, nearly dragging Drax off his feet. Drax used all his considerable strength to push back and wrench hard to the left.

The bull gave a startled mewl. It tried back away, but Drax dug in.

“You got this, big guy!” Rocket shouted, leaning far over the railing and cupping his hands around his mouth to be heard over the roaring audience.

Drax hauled himself up by the horns and vaulted over the bulls head, sliding down its back. When he reached the bull's flanks, he dropped down and ducked low. The bull tried to whip around, but Drax had grabbed the creature's furthest hind leg with both hands, so its thrashing only put it off-balance.

Drax yanked, and the bull toppled to its side with a grunt of surprise.

It didn't stay down for long, but Drax had already spun away with his arms thrust into the air, laughing and shouting triumphantly. The crowd roared back.

“That was sure somethin', folks!” the announcer cried over the roar. “That's gonna be hard to top.”

“Did you see?” Drax shouted to Rocket and the other Guardians. “I am victorious on this day!”

Rocket scrambled down from the fence. “Be right back, buddy,” he said to Groot, bowing to lightly bump foreheads with the sapling. “Hold Groot for me, will ya Pete? Thanks.”

He thrust the pot into Quill's hands without waiting, then hurried off around the ring, ducking between blue-jean clad legs and scrambling over boots which stank of the heaps they'd stepped in. There was no telling where Drax would emerge from.

Rocket stumbled out of the forest of legs and nearly tripped into the bullpen. The lowest metal bar hit him in the chest. Hooves stamped bare inches from his face, and he staggered back.

A different bull from the one who'd dropped Drax danced anxiously in the pen. A cowboy stood outside the pen just behind it, standing up on the bar so he could lean over. As Rocket watched, the man zapped the bull's flank with some kind of prod.

 _Zzt_!

It was a small shock. The bull barely registered irritation with a flick of its tail. But the sparks burned in the back of Rocket's eyelids, and his chest filled with a smoldering anger.

“Hey!” he shouted at the man, pulling himself up the bars to get closer to eye level. “What in the krutackin galaxy do you think you're doing? How would you like it if I shocked you with that thing?”

The guy laughed. “I'd be none too happy about it. But then, I ain't got a hide as thick as this ball-buster here. I gotta give him a little zap or he wont be worked up enough to throw his rider.”

“He looks worked up just fine already,” Rocket growled. “You don't have to-”

“Shit, what's wrong with your face?” the cowboy asked, squinting at Rocket. “Are you one a them kids from that Podunk McConner Ranch? Product of incest, kinda thing?”

“Excuse me?”

“Tell me somethin'. Was your ma also your sister?”

With a flash of teeth, Rocket launched himself at the cowboy. There wasn't much weight behind the attack but it was enough to knock the surprised man back off the gate. He fell on his back with an oomph, his breath woofed out of him. Rocket knelt on the man's chest and yanked his shirt collar.

“Don't talk about my ma,” he shouted in the man's face. “You don't know her! I barely knew her, so how could you?”

Sensing the confrontation behind him, the bull brayed, stamping even more restlessly in his confines of the pen. Rocket looked over his shoulder at the distressed animal. Pity drooped his ears and pulled down the corners of his mouth.

“You're lucky I've got more important stuff to do than deal with your sorry butt,” Rocket said. “Or I'd make you eat that pile of shit over there.”

Rocket hopped off the man's neck, stepping over his chest. For good measure, he stomped on the cowboy's balls as he passed, hard. The man folded around the blow with an pained wheeze.

He wasn't getting up after that.

Rocket stormed off. It didn't take long to find the sectioned pens where the other bulls were kept. These animals seemed less anxious than the one in the chute, but their confinement still made Rocket's blood boil. One of the bulls noticed him as he scampered up. It regarded him with a dark bovine stare and blew a huff through its nostrils. Its breath tickled Rocket's fur.

“I got you,” Rocket whispered to the bull.

There were plenty of cowboys nearby, but they mostly leaned against the wall of the nearby barn, swilling beer and spitting into the dirt. They took no notice of Rocket sneaking around the pens. They didn't see him unlatch each gate. In fact, they only straightened up when Rocket cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted at the top of his lungs.

“YOU'RE FREE!”

Startled, the bulls lunged forward. The unlatched gates swung open, spilling the stampede of steer out into the open.

Now the cowboys sprang up off the wall, dropping their beers and grabbing their ropes. In the confusion, Rocket to slipped away. He didn't know where he wanted to escape to. The company of the other Guardian's didn't sound appealing. He wanted to be alone.

Rocket rounded the corner and stepped into the barn.

In contrast to the noisy confusion outside, the interior of the barn was cool and quiet, and filled with bars of shadow and golden light. Horses nickered greetings as Rocket passed their stalls. Rats scurried through drifts of loose hay, darting into cover when they heard Rocket's soft footsteps.

He found a ladder and climbed up. Hay bales were stacked up there in the loft, along with a huge pile which Rocket collapsed into. He pulled hay over himself until he was buried. The darkness was lovely. The sweet, seedy smell of straw tickled his nose, but that was lovely, too.

Alone with only the muffled whumph of his own heartbeat in his ears, Rocket wondered if this is what his species was supposed to feel like; if the raccoon, who they had left on the RV, felt this way in his cocoon of blankets.

Rocket had no idea how long he dozed in his nest. A voice echoing in the barn roused him.

“Rocket! Is this where you are hiding?”

Scrambling out of the hay, Rocket clambered over to the edge of the loft and peered down. “Whaddya want?”

Drax looked up at him. “We received news that a cryptid released the steers from their pens. I assumed that was you.”

“They weren't treating 'em right.”

“All of the animals have been recaptured.”

Of course they had been caught. Rocket had failed to free anyone, just like last time. For a moment, he couldn't force the faces of the others out of his mind. The ones he had promised to help escape. They had each fallen. Every last-

Rocket shook his head. That was different. Still, he had secretly hoped that some of the bulls would make it out. Even just one.

“They didn't ask to be here. They don't want to be crammed into stupid little boxes and poked and shocked and stared at,” Rocket shouted, his voice was thick with emotion. “Nobody gave them a choice!”

Drax didn't answer, but scaled the ladder and hauled himself onto the loft beside Rocket.

Rocket refused to look at him. He sat with his arms wrapped around his knees, staring firmly away. A slight touch against his shoulder made his eyes, gleaming with tears, go wide. He knocked Drax's hand away.

“Don't.”

“I understand why you are upset.”

“You don't understand,” Rocket said. “There's no way you could, because I never told you.”

“Perhaps not, then. But you are welcome to tell me. When I first lost Hovat and Kamaria, it was very hard for me to talk about them, and about my pain. Over time, I have learned that it is healing to share your burdens.”

“Maybe for you, but you ain't like me. Nobody and nothin' is like me.”

Drax reached again for Rocket, but this time he allowed the comforting touch. Drax's fingers sought and found his tail. It twitched automatically under his palm.

“In the arcade, you said that without Groot, you feel small and weak. You said he had been your strength.”

“It was a trick,” Rocket said. “I just wanted you to feel bad for me so you'd help me rob that stupid game.”

“Yes. But I believe there was truth behind your words, because I have felt the same way. Hovat-”

“Here we go again. Is it Drax's dead family hour already?”

“Silence, vermin,” Drax said. His stroking up and down Rocket's tail never faltered. “Hovat was my heart. Once, all I knew was the pursuit of glory and the thrill of battle. For her, I allowed myself to be weak. She taught me to love. Without her, sometimes I wonder if I will lose that ability. Perhaps I already have.”

“Drax.” Rocket finally looked up, and saw that Drax's expression was distant, lost in memory.

“And Kamaria was my eyes and ears. My planet received its first contact from the galaxy within my lifetime. Strangers came. Aliens. They landed among us, wanting to trade and to learn of our people. I could not understand them. Even with the aid of a translating device, I often missed the deeper meaning beneath their words. But Kamaria was young. She learned quickly. Whenever she was with me, she explained to me the connotations which the translator missed.”

“Sounds handy.”

“I am better at understanding people now. I am learning, slowly. But I still mistake people's meanings. Without Kamaria, I am deaf and blind.”

“That's a metaphor, you know,” Rocket said. “Hovat being your heart, and Kamaria being your eyes and ears? It's a metaphor. I guess you're learning faster than you thought.”

“Perhaps.” The foggy, far away look left Drax's eyes, and he smiled down at Rocket. “And you are not small or weak as you seem to believe.”

Rocket scoffed. “Easy for you to say. You ain't the one who can barely get up on the toilet seat. If you wanna cook, it don't take you half an hour just to get all the stuff out of the cabinets.”

Drax was quiet for a stretch of seconds.

Rocket fell backward into the hay pile, sending up a cloud of dust and straw that made him sneeze. He stared up into the rafters of the barn. A bar of golden slanted through the high window, cutting through the shadows. Motes swam lazily through the sunbeam.

After a moment, Drax came to recline beside him in the straw. His arms folded behind his head, he stared up at the same swimming motes.

“I would like to be your strength.”

“Huh?” Rocket asked.

“Until Groot is large again, I wish to do the things he used to do for you. I will provide any assistance you require.”

“You don't wanna do that,” Rocket quickly dismissed. “Like I said, it's not all shoot-outs. Mostly Groot used to help me with was stupid, little stuff. Lifting heavy objects. Picking me up so I could reach the sink. Stuff like that.”

“I imagine those tasks seem neither stupid, nor little, if they are ones you cannot accomplish.” Drax turned to look at Rocket. “Please. You are my friend, and I would like to share your burden.”

In that moment, Drax looked unbearably kind, and sincere, and more handsome than Rocket had ever seen him.

Rocket found himself leaning closer. Before he could over think it, he had pressed his lips against Drax's; lightly, barely brushing. Poised to escape.

For a moment, Drax did nothing, and Rocket nearly did pull away. In a heartbeat, he considered a thousand ways he could play it off. But then Drax kissed him back.

At first hesitantly, and then hard enough to take Rocket's breath away. Drax's hands rose up to comb through the fur on Rocket's shoulders, and then higher, to graze his neck and cup his jaw, to curl behind his ears.

When Drax broke the kiss, he was panting. Rocket's eyes were foggy. His heart pounded, but not with the painful hammering he was accustomed to when waking from nightmares. It throbbed with a kind of sweet fervor that sent warmth all through his body.

“That was...” Drax trailed off. He looked concerned. “Is that one of the roles I am filling for Groot?”

Rocket didn't even know what he was talking about for a moment. Then he laughed; he couldn't help it. “No, you big idiot. That was just for you. I was...touched, I guess, by the gesture. Don't read too much into it.”

“So I should not assume that you are interested in me as a potential romantic or sexual partner?”

“Well, I wouldn't rule anything out.”

Faintly through the walls of the barn, Rocket could hear whooping and cheering from the crowd. Since the bulls were caught, they must have gone on with the rodeo. The announcer's booming voice over the speakers said something too muffled to make out.

“We should get back out there,” Rocket said, reluctantly. “Cowboy Quill's probably getting his ass kicked. And Groot-”

Drax interrupted him with another kiss, this time scooping Rocket fully into his arms. Rocket relaxed into the embrace and allowed himself to be kissed. Groot would be fine without him. Everyone would. Right now, in the cool, dark expanse of barn, with the nickering of horses below and the sweet smell of hay in his nose, and Drax's body firm and wanting against him, there was nowhere else in the galaxy that Rocket would rather be.

 


	6. It's a Heartache

“She gave me a kid's menu,” Rocket said, scowling down at the paper menu in front of him. “And crayons.”

“Too be fair, you were sitting in a booster seat. What was she supposed to think?” Quill quipped, swallowing a swig of black diner coffee with a grimace. “Now this is what I'm talking about. A real slice of Americana.”

Rocket looked around skeptically at the restaurant, which the neon tubes (unlit in the bleached New Mexico sunlight) had dubbed 'Dave's Diner'. Dirt streaked the black and white checked floor. The booths, upholstered in red vinyl, had been picked down to the foam in places. Dead bugs shadowed the inside the florescent light fixtures.

“If you say so, Pete,” Rocket said.

From the corner, a jukebox crooned;

_It's a heartache, nothing but a heartache. Hits you when it's too late, hits you when you're doo-oo-oown._

Groot swayed slightly to the music. His pot sat on the scratched formica tabletop, the ceramic warmed by sunbeams falling through the window.

The place was shabby and dirty, but Rocket still might have liked it if he were in a better mood. Drax was the cause of his bad attitude. Since they'd left the rodeo, he had been acting weird: Avoiding Rocket, and giving short, one word responses whenever he tried to talk to him. When they'd gone to bed the night before, Drax had closed his eyes at once and feigned instantaneous sleep.

“What do you think you're gonna order, Drax?” Quill asked. “Anything look good?”

Drax shook his head. “I have not yet decided. Please excuse me. I must urinate.” He stood up out of the booth.

Quill pointed to the back corner of the diner, near the jukebox. “That way. Also, on Earth, we just say that we need to go the bathroom.”

Drax turned back to him with a raised eyebrow. “That is most vague. How would you know for which purpose I am visiting the bathroom?”

“Uh, we don't really need to know that information.”

After a moment of consideration, Drax gave a nod and started in the direction Quill had pointed him toward.

“I gotta piss, too,” Rocket said, scrambling over Gamora's lap to get out.

Quill called after him. “You have to use the bathroom, remember? The bathroom!”

“Yeah,” Rocket barked back. “I gotta piss in the bathroom.”

When Drax pushed open the bathroom door, Rocket slipped between his legs before the door snicked shut. He made no move toward the urinals. Drax tried to go that way, but Rocket blocked his path.

“What's your problem?” Rocket demanded.

“I have no problem,” Drax said. “Except that I cannot reach the urine receptacles if you are standing in front of me.”

“Cut the crap, Drax. I know you understand me. You're not an idiot.”

Drax looked away. “Yes.”

“So, what's up? Did I give you fleas or something? Because you're acting like you don't wanna be around me.”

“That is not the case. However, I believe that yesterday's events were a mistake. We should not engage with each other in that manner anymore.”

Even though Rocket had suspected as much, the words felt like a punch to the gut. “Fine,” he said. He spit on the dirty bathroom tiles. “Good. I was thinking the same thing.”

“I would like to explain-”

“No, I get it. Thanks.”

Rocket shoved past Drax—a gesture made less satisfying by not being able to budge the man in the slightest—and stomped out of the bathroom.

“Did you wash your hands?” Quill asked, when Rocket clambered back into the booth.

“Mind your own business, Pete.”

“You've really got to start doing it every time,” Gamora agreed. She flipped through the laminated menu, frowning. “This food appears to be cooked in a great deal of fat and grease.”

“That's the point. It's diner food,” Quill said. “What are you thinking about, Rocket?”

Rocket, who was currently thinking about how much he wanted to kill Drax, kill him or kiss him or both, jolted. “Eh?”

“Do you know what you're going to order?”

“Oh. Yeah.” Rocket glanced down at his paper menu. “I guess I'm gonna get the clown face pancakes.”

“I will order the same meal,” Drax announced. “I will also have a dozen poached eggs and several 'bacons' on the side.”

“We're on a budget, remember? And those pancakes are pretty much just for kids.”

“On Earth, is it customary to honor warriors by eating food shaped like their faces?” Gamora asked. “The clowns at the rodeo were incredibly brave, to face down that horned creature.”

A woman in the next booth twisted around to look at them. Her arm rested across the seat back. The young woman studied them through black framed glasses.

“Hey,” she said. “I don't want to pry, but are you aliens?”

“What?” Quill asked, his voice shooting up a few octaves. “Why would you think we're aliens?”

“Not all of you. I'm pretty sure about both of you are,” she said, pointing to Gamora and Drax. When she gestured to Rocket, she paused. “You, I'm not so sure about. And that thing...what is that thing?”

“That's Groot,” Rocket snapped. “And he's not a _thing_.”

The woman grinned. “Okay, you're definitely an alien. Darcy Lewis, by the way.” She offered a hand over the back of the booth, which Quill leaned over the table to shake.

“Nice to meet you, Darcy. If you know about aliens, maybe you've heard of me. Starlord?”

“Uh, to be honest, I've only met a few of you guys, and they were all Asgardians? They didn't mention you.”

“Worth a shot. Oh, yeah. Let me introduce my friends-”

“Hold on,” Rocket interrupted. “We don't know this lady. How do we know we can trust her? And how'd she know we ain't from around here?”

“Uh, he's blue? And she's green. And you're a talking raccoon. Also, none of you denied it.”

“Can't argue with that,” Quill said brightly. “Hey, if it's cool, don't tell anyone else, okay? We're trying to fly under the radar.”

Darcy's eyebrows shot up. “You're doing an excellent job. Great disguises.”

“What disguises?” Drax asked.

“That was my point. But you don't have to worry about people around here. Some alien stuff went down here awhile back—long story, I'll tell you over dinner later if you're sticking around-” this last, she said with a wink at Quill. “And as long as you're not here to blow anything up, you'll be fine.”

“Awesome. We've been making good time, so I guess we can stay in town tonight.”

Rocket could help but notice the way Gamora glared daggers into Quill. Maybe they really were hooking up. Rocket's pride would never let him admit it, but he felt jealous. He cast a furtive glance at Drax. Drax was looking at him, but as soon as their gazes met, his slipped aside. He stared pointedly out the window, feigning disinterest.

 _Fine,_ Rocket thought. He didn't need him, anyway.

 

 

“You're so lucky to have each other,” Rocket said, his arms wrapped around the shoulders of two identical young women. The twins carried Rocket between them, giggling and tripping out of the bar. “Must be nice to have someone like yer'self to talk to.”

The door swung shut, closing off the heat and noise of the pub. Out on the sidewalk, the small town was silent. An infinite stretch of sky stretched overhead. In Rocket's walloping vision, every star was a shooting star, Each point of light seemed to drag a phantasmal comet tail.

Rocket hiccuped. “There's nobody like me, not in the whole universe. I'm the only one of my kind.”

“That must be lonely,” said one of the girls. She leaned in to kiss him on the cheek.

Her breath tickled Rocket's fur, and he bristled happily. “Oh, yeah,” he agreed. “The worst. But you two are going a long way to taking my mind off it.”

“Maybe this will take you the rest of the way.” The other twin touched Rocket's chin and turned him to face her.

She kissed him full on the mouth, parting her lips against his. Rocket pressed back into the kiss. She tasted nice. Faintly spicy, like she'd been chewing cinnamon flavored gum. But he couldn't help compare it to the kiss with Drax. Rocket had liked the neutral, sweet smell of Drax's breath, and the insistent way he had kissed: gentle but firm, and deliciously slow.

It was the memory of that other kiss, not the current one, that caused the churn of interest in Rocket's gut. It didn't matter. This girl was on offer. Drax was not. He'd made that perfectly clear.

“I can't believe you just did that!” the other twin shrieked, right into Rocket's ear.

“Shut up, you slut,” the cinnamon girl said. “I know you're gonna do way nastier than that tonight.”

“How dare you? I mean, I definitely _am._ But, still, how dare you.”

Rocket's whiskers twitched. “That sounds promising.”

Giggling and flirting with Rocket perched between the their shoulders, the twins stumbled toward the RV.

When they flung open the passenger's side door, they were greeted by the raccoon. Someone had wrestled it into a set of Rocket's clothing. The well-dressed animal stared up at them with huge, wet eyes, its ears flicking.

Rocket had no warning before he was dropped unceremoniously on his ass.

“Nobody like you in the whole universe, huh?” one of the girls said, her voice dripping with disgust.

“What else did you lie about?” the other girl asked. “Is there even such a thing as the Guardians of the Galaxy, or did you make that up, too?”

“Wait, hang on. This isn't what it looks like.”

“Save it, rat.”

The twins turned together, and one of them brought their heel down hard on Rocket's tail as she stomped off. He yelped.

As he climbed to his feet and brushed the dust off himself, Rocket glared at the raccoon. That was stupid. This wasn't its fault. The raccoon didn't dress itself up, and it sure as hell didn't know how it had screwed things up for Rocket. Quill was the real culprit. Obviously this had been his stupid prank, because none of the other Guardians would be so immature.

But when Rocket stamped up the steps into the RV, the only person inside was Drax. The man was sprawled out across the living space with one elbow propped on the couch behind him. Empty liquor bottles littered the floor. Not the watery, weak beer from the bar, either, but harder booze he must have gotten from somewhere else.

The raccoon tried to slip past Rocket, and he shut the door before it could escape outside.

“Did you do this?” Rocket asked, gesturing toward the clothed raccoon.  
“I thought it would be humorous,” Drax said morosely. “It was not.”

“You really flarked things up for me, pal. Things were going great with those two,” Rocket said, rummaging through the cabinets. He wasn't searching for anything in particular, just punctuating his words with the angry slam of cabinet doors. “You know how often I get laid? The answer is, not as often as you'd think. Those two were really into me. They were gonna-”

“Be silent,” Drax ordered, his voice dark with anger. “I do not wish to hear this.”

Rocket whipped around, slamming a cabinet shut with a bang that could have been heard from space. “Oh yeah?” he asked, storming up to Drax until he was practically standing in his lap, snarling in his face. “I'm not particularly interested in what you want, Drax. If it wasn't for your prank, I'd be going to town on two beautiful ladies right now. Are you gonna take their place? You gonna take care of this?” he asked, lewdly grabbing his own crotch.

Drax shoved him away. “I cannot!”  
Rocket stumbled backward, nearly falling over before caught himself against the table. “As if I care,” he snapped, starting toward the door. “I can do better, anyway.”

“Where are you going?”

“Back to the bar. Who knows? Maybe I'll find another pair of gorgeous twins who wanna get it on with a freak.”

Drax's hand shot out. He grabbed Rocket's elbow and spun him around. Rocket's heart slammed in his chest. His nerves felt like live wires, spitting and sparking. In that moment, he wanted, needed Drax to pull him close, crush him into his arms and kiss the air out of his lungs again. His fingers trembled with the intensity of that need.

“Stay,” Drax demanded.

Like he had in the barn, Rocket leaned forward. His eyelids drifted shut. But before he could make contact, something hard across his chest barred his way. His eyes fluttered open and he saw what had stopped him.

Drax's hand against his chest.

“Please,” Drax said, his voice cracking. “Do not make this more difficult.”

Rocket grabbed Drax's hand and forced it away. He shook, no longer with desire, but with fury. “Me? I'm making this difficult?”

“You are extremely attractive to me. I find it hard to resist you. However, we cannot do this.”

“So you don't wanna have sex with me, but you don't want me to have sex with anyone else? Am I getting this right?”

“If you wish to copulate with someone...” Drax's voice cracked with emotion. He looked away. “I cannot stop you.”

“Good. Glad we have an understanding. I'll get out of your hair, now.”

This time, Rocket hurried off before Drax could snare him again. Before exploding out the door, he heard Drax say behind him- “But I have no hair.” -and then Rocket was outside, with the door slamming shut behind him. A sound which was half laugh and half sob burst out of him: a small, impossibly insignificant sound against the endless span of desert.

With the heat of his tears burning off the haze of alcohol, Rocket stumbled back to town.

 


	7. Here Comes the Sun

Rocket dragged himself back to the RV early the next morning. The sun was only just mounting the horizon, spilling pink light across the sand. Later, it would climb higher up the sky and bear down with oppressive heat, but the morning was pleasantly cool. By the time Rocket clambered into the RV, the headache slamming in his temples had dulled to a distant throb.

Peter Quill was laid out across the couch, his feet kicked over the side. He cracked open one eye to look at Rocket.

“Where have you been?” he asked.

“Sleeping. Where's Groot?”

Quill pointed toward the bathroom, where the curtain was drawn across the doorway. Rocket crossed the cabin and twitched aside the curtain to look inside. Groot's pot sat in the bottom of the sink. Someone had turned the faucet on so a thin trickle of water flowed over Groot and through the soil. The tiny flora colossus was swaying gently in the stream, fresh green shoots unfurling.

When he noticed Rocket in the doorway, Groot smiled widely. “I am Groot!”

“Good morning to you, too.”

Rocket let the curtain fall shut so Groot could finish his shower in privacy. The sound of snoring made him peer around the corner into his own 'bedroom'. Drax was passed out on the bed, curled up on his side with one foot sticking out of the twisted sheets. His arm was wrapped around the raccoon. It was still wearing Rocket's clothes, and didn't seem to mind Drax's cuddling. Its nose twitched and it blinked to take in the sight of Rocket.

With a chirp of greeting, the raccoon wriggled out of Drax's embrace and waddled over to its food dish. Drax's snoring faltered. In a moment, he curled up tighter and sank back into the deep, even rhythm of sleep.

“So,” Quill said. “You didn't sleep here last night. I guess that means you got lucky with one of those cute twins?”

“Both of 'em, almost. Gimme that,” Rocket said, struggling his shirt over the protesting raccoon's head. Once he got it off, he rewarded the raccoon by shaking some kibble into its bowl.

“Did you see the lovebirds?” Quill asked. “When I came in last night, Drax was pretty damn drunk. He was trying to make out with the raccoon.”

Rocket chuckled down at the animal, which was snuffling greedily while it scarfed down its food. “Congrats, buddy. You officially got more action than me last night.”

“What about the twins?” Quill asked.

“Didn't work out.”

“Ah. If it helps, I struck out with this girl I've been seeing, too.”

Rocket slid down the cabinets to sit on the tile. “Everyone knows you're talking about Gamora. You can just say it.”

Quill sat up and leaned up off the couch to peer deeper into the RV, his mouth pressed in a tight, worried line. When he saw that Gamora was asleep in her bunk, he sighed and laid back down.

“Yeah. It's her. But we're keeping it on the down low. She's been giving me mixed signals, you know? It's just...frustrating.”

“You're preaching to the choir.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“It's an expression.”

“Yeah, an expression that means you're in the same boat. Unless there's something really weird and kind of incestuous going on between you and Groot, there's no way you could be.”

Rocket groaned and buried his face in his hands. “Forget it.”

“Wait a minute. There is someone, isn't there? Is that why it didn't work out with the twins?”

“Drop it, Pete.”

“But-”

“I said, drop it!” Rocket snapped, loud enough that he shot a glance down the hall to make sure he hadn't woken up the others.

“I am Groot?” Groot asked from the bathroom.

“We're fine,” Rocket replied. “Quill is just having a trouble keeping his nose out of my business, us all.”

“I can take a hint. I'll drop it if you want me to. But we're friends, right? If there's anything bugging you, you can talk to me. Sometimes it helps to get things off your chest.”

“Why does everyone keep telling me that? Maybe I'm just the kind of guy who's gotta go through stuff by myself. You ever think of that?”

“If that's that case, that sucks. Nobody should have to go through stuff alone.”

 

 

Next stop. Another disapointment.

Rain shrouded their vehicle in a solid, torrential sheet. Looking out the window, Rocket couldn't imagine see any kind of canyon, grand or otherwise. He could barely imagine a universe beyond the RV.

Though they had thankfully been able to park before the sky opened up, Quill had the engines running and the windshield wipers on. He leaned close to the glass to stare out. Even with the wipers slapping away the water every couple seconds, the deluge was still impenetrable. A flash of brightness briefly lit the sheet of water cascading down the glass. A few seconds later, thunder rumbled.

“We can't go out there,” Gamora said.

“I know,” Peter said, the sulk obvious in his voice. “I just really wanted to see the Grand Canyon.”

“What's to see? It's a big crack in the ground. You've seen one crack, you've seen 'em all,” Rocket said.

“But it's the quintessential road trip destination,” Peter whined.

Gamora, leaning back on the couch with her arms crossed, rolled her eyes. “We can't just sit around like this and complain. We're going to make each other crazy.”

“Yes. I feel my sanity diminishing as we speak,” Drax said. The raccoon chittered its agreement from his lap. Rocket tried not to be jealous of the way Drax's fingers stroked over the animal's fur.

Quill perked up a little. “We could play board games. I brought some, just in case something of like this.”

“Why are they called 'bored games'?” Gamora asked warily. “Is it because the participants will become quickly bored?”

“No, no. Not at all. Board games are super fun,” Quill promised. “I used to play them with my mom all the time.”

After two rounds of Sorry, one incomplete game of Monopoly (they'd been going around for two hours, buying and selling properties into a tedious standoff, when Rocket resolved the matter by stealing everyone's money and kicking their hotels off the board), and half a match of Scrabble later, even Quill was ready to admit that they might be 'bored' games after all.

“What does that mean? Gilpest?” Quill asked.

“Gilpest! The soft hairs on a treg,” Drax said.

“For the millionth, billionth time, that's not...” Quill closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I'm not trying to be an asshole. But you can't use words from other languages in this game, remember?”

“It hardly seems fair that we are only allowed to use words from your native tongue,” Gamora said, her cheek propped in her knuckles. “It gives you an unfair advantage.”

“The only Scrabble dictionary we have is in English. What are we supposed to do?”

“You could just ask the walking thesaurus over here,” Rocket said, jerking a finger toward Drax.

Drax's fist slammed down on the table, sending up a spray of letter tiles. “I have told you _never_ to call me that.”

“You don't even know what that word means,” Gamora said.

“I know that I am not a thesaurus.”

Rocket scoffed. “I could call you a few worse names than that.”

“And I might describe you in an unflattering manner as well, rodent, if I were not certain that your fragile ego would be mortally wounded.”

“Is that right? Bring it on, big guy.” Rocket leaped up to stand on the table, kicking aside any scrabble pieces that Drax's blow hadn't managed to scatter. “You wanna call me a freak? A monster? 'cos I've heard it all.”

“Uh, guys,” Quill said, pulling Groot's pot tighter into his lap. “I think we should all take a second to calm down.”

“I do not need to calm down,” Drax roared. The raccoon crept out of his lap and took shelter in a kitchen cabinet. “I am extremely calm!”

For a moment, the RV's cab filled with the flash of lightning, etching everyone's tense expressions in stark contrast. Thunder crashed immediately in its wake.

“Oh yeah, I can tell how calm you are,” Rocket said. “All the barely contained serenity must be what's making that vein pop out on your stupid bald head.”

“Do not talk about my head!” Drax bent over the table until he was shouting in Rocket's face.

“Whose ego is fragile, now? And I'll talk about whatever I want!”

“You-”

“I am Groot!”

Everyone turned to look at the potted sapling clutched in Quill's arms. Groot's eyes were wide and wet with tears.

“Oh, flark. Hey, it's okay, Groot,” Rocket said, sliding off the table.

He reached a hand toward Groot, but the sapling flinched away from his outstretched fingers. Large sap-like droplets oozed from his eyes and down his cheeks. He turned and buried his face against Quill's chest.

“Groot...”

The only sound in the cab was rain hammering on the roof. Everybody was silent, scarcely daring to breathe. Groot remained plastered to Quill's shirt, tiny fingers tightly clenching the fabric.

After a long stretch of seconds, Rocket pulled his hand back. He turned and walked quickly to the door.

“You can't leave,” Quill said. “It's storming out there.”

Rocket was already halfway out the door. The instant he set foot outside, his fur was drenched, plastered to his body by the icy cold downpour. Shaking violently, Rocket pushed forward into the rain.

Droplets slammed into the hard packed ground and shattered into mist, creating an icy fog that was impossible to see through. But Rocket couldn't turn back. Shame and anger burned a hot welt in his throat. He started walking faster, then jogging, then sprinting, as though he could somehow escape from Drax, from this stupid planet, from his problems, or even from himself.

Blinded by tears and the solid sheet of rain, Rocket ran until there was nowhere else to run. His left foot lurched through thin air. His eyes went wide, and he windmilled his arms.

By some miracle, he propelled himself hard enough to fall backward. He landed with solid ground beneath his butt.

Lightning sliced through the rain. Rocket expected to see the Grand Canyon laid out beneath him, but the flash revealed a much smaller drop. Still steep enough to seriously hurt, maybe even kill Rocket if he'd fallen wrong. The resultant thunderclap echoed his pounding heartbeat.

“Rocket!”

D'ast that voice, and d'ast its owner. The last time Rocket responded to that call, from his hiding place in the loft, it only led to pain. For a moment, he considered staying quiet and hidden within the veil of rain, hoping Drax would get tired of looking for him. But then he remembered the drop. Stumbling around blindly, Drax might walk straight over the edge.

“Over here! And watch your step,” Rocket warned.

Drax materialized out of the rain, nearly tripping over Rocket's huddled, shivering form.

“Little one,” Drax said. “I am glad to have found you.”

“Alright, you found me. Now you can go back and tell everyone we made up,” Rocket said, standing up to face Drax. He had to shout to be heard over the rain's deafening hiss.

“HA! Ha ha!” Drax's laugh was loud as thunder. “You look ridiculous.”

Rocket looked down at himself. He did look terrible. Scrawny and angular with his soaked fur flattened against his skin. His rows of nipples prodded through the clinging material of his shirt.

“Yeah, well. You ain't looking so hot yourself.”

That was a lie. If anything, Drax was more attractive than ever, with water shining over the hard, muscular planes of his body. But Rocket wouldn't give him the satisfaction of saying so.

“Anyway, you really can go back to the van. I was pissed before, yeah. But I'm over it. Don't flatter yourself by thinking' you've broke my heart. You're hardly the first person to come to their senses in the morning.”

Drax looked surprised. “Is that what you think?

“What am I s'posed to think?”

“It was not my desire to make you feel unwanted,” Drax said. “My marriage to Hovat is a sole union. I made a vow to couple only with her.”

“If you can't get with nobody else, what was that crap the other day in the motel? You said if the right guy came around, you might go for it. Someone short, if you already knew him pretty well. You...” The dawn of understanding came into Rocket's eyes, and he swallowed. “You were talking about me. You were, weren't you?”

Drax said nothing. His steel blue eyes bored through the rain.

“What the hell are you trying to do? Screw with my head? You made me want this—want you—and now you're backing out. Why?”

“I have no excuse. I was weak. My vow-”

“Your d'ast vow! You had a sole union. So what? You're supposed to be alone forever now? I know you don't wanna hear this, Drax, but Hovat is dead. She's gone.”

“No. Never gone. She is here, in the story of my life.” Bowing his head, Drax gestured to his bicep. “Here, reciting her sole pledge on the slopes of Mount Kylos. And here-” Drax touched the tattoo beneath his eye. “The loudest voice cheering my name, during my first battle in the Galactic Arena.”

His fingertips trailed down his body. His thumbs hooked into the hem of his pants, he pushed them down a little further to reveal a tattoo which dipped down the delta of his hipbones. “She is here, conceiving our daughter.”

Rocket understood. His body also bore marks, scars binding him forever to relatives lost. He could never feel the nubs of the metals implants in his back without remembering the others who'd suffered the same wounds.

But that didn't stop him from scowling, or from standing as tall as he could with his fists clenched at his sides.

“That's crap. I mean, sorry, but it is. Those are just tattoos, Drax. Who's gonna cheer for you now, huh? Not a tattoo. A mark on your skin ain't gonna make you any more babies, neither.”

“You know not of what you speak!”

Drax sank to his knees before Rocket. Rain ran over him in rivers, waterfalls cascading over his massive, hunched shoulders. “Hovat awaits me in the next life. How will I face her if I break my vow? Even if she receives me, I will not deserve her forgiveness.”

Rocket stepped forward. He reached out to touch Drax's cheek, his palm pressed against that mark; against Hovat, screaming Drax's name from the stands. It might have been stupid sentimentality, his own imagination, but Rocket could swear he felt her in that moment. Love thundering through her in time with the crowd's roar and leaving her body in a joyful, earsplitting shout.

“She loved you.”

“Yes.”

“You think this is what she'd want? You alone, feeling like crap for craving a little companionship?”

Instead of an answer, Drax produced a honk which sounded suspiciously like a sob.

“Are you crying?” Rocket asked, disbelieving. “I thought you never cried.”

“No. It is only the rain making it appear as though I am weeping.”

“Liar,” Rocket said, grinning. “Those are big fat tears rolling down your cheeks. 'fess up!”

A deep, prolonged rumble of thunder made Rocket think the storm was moving further away, until he realized it wasn't thunder at all, but Drax's low chuckle. Somehow, Rocket found himself in Drax's lap, shoving the man back so he landed on his ass in the rain-soaked dust and mud, both laughing, their foreheads pressed together.

There was a moment, half a heartbeat, where Rocket really could have gotten up. They could have returned to the RV as friends; closer friends, maybe, for the experience.

But the moment passed. Rocket's heart beat, and he lunged in for a whiskery, full-on kiss, his arms wrapped tightly around Drax's neck. They fell the rest of the way into the mud, no longer feeling the icy teeth of the rain or the grit against Drax's back.

They stayed that way for an incalculable length of time. Only a periodic jag of lightning or thunder cracking marked the minutes. Lost in that joyful kiss, neither Rocket or Drax noted the storm's slow march across the sky. Soon, the rain had slackened enough that it no longer drowned out their own thundering heartbeats.

Eventually, they managed to untangle themselves and stagger to their feet. Rocket perched on Drax's broad shoulder to hitch a ride back to the RV.

“Do you really have fleas?” Drax asked.

“What?”

“In the restaurant's bathroom, you asked if you had given me fleas.”

“That's...I was just...Nah, no way. I'm totally clean.” After a moment, Rocket amended. “I mean, it doesn't matter. It's not like you have anywhere for them to live, right?”

“Vile vermin,” Drax said, grinning a kiss into Rocket's side.

“Big idiot.”

 


	8. You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

“This is it?” Rocket asked.

He stared out over the Grand Canyon, feeling underwhelmed. He'd even clambered up to Drax’s shoulder to get a better view. But no matter how Rocket looked, the sight failed to inspire the awe that the tourism pamphlets had promised. It was huge, no doubt: the orange cliffs sloped down impossibly far, with the river unspooled below like a silver ribbon. The sight made Rocket feel small. But for him, feeling small was nothing novel.

It didn’t help that the sun was scorching hot, sucking up the water from the ground and turning the air miserably muggy. If Rocket had felt like New Mexico’s heat was baking him alive, this was death by boiling.

Quill leaned over the guardrail. Sweat made his damp hair stick to his forehead. “Yep, this is it. The Grand Canyon. Isn't it something?”

“I guess that's a good description.”

“This canyon does not seem particularly grand. On my home planet, there are many chasms both deeper and wider than this one,” Drax said.

“Yeah, well, it's the grandest canyon we've got,” Quill said. “And we're proud of it.”

Rocket rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe you dragged us out for this. This ain't even worth the ten minute hike from the parking lot, and sure as flark wasn’t worth spending the night rained out in the RV.”

Actually, the night hadn’t been so bad. Rocket shot a sideways glance at Drax, and from the dusky blush coloring the man;s cheeks, he guessed the same memories were flashing through mind.

Last night, by the time they'd found their way back through the downpour, Quill and Gamora had fallen asleep in their bunks. Fully clothed, as though they'd tried to keep vigil before eventually succumbing to sleep. Drax had wrapped a towel around Rocket and rubbed him dry. Rocket's fur had puffed up like a dandelion, and he'd had to shush Drax to keep him from waking everyone with his laughter. Then they'd slipped into bed.

After shooing the raccoon out of their sheets and turning Groot's pot to face the wall, Rocket had wriggled closer to Drax, had touched his face with trembling, reverent fingers and worked his way downward. Drax had returned his touches; large hands grabbed and stroked, working over every inch of Rocket's body with surprising gentleness.

The rain rattling against the roof had masked any sounds they made, drowning out Drax's appreciative hum, which Rocket felt through his lips against the man's throat, and Rocket's shameful, needy whimpering whenever Drax's hands roved away from a particularly sweet spot in favor of unexplored territory.

“Earth to Rocket,” Quill said, waving his hand in front of Rocket's eyes. “Or should I say, Rocket to Earth. Get it? It's a space joke.”

Rocket scowled and slapped Quill's hand aside. “Alright, we've seen the d'ast canyon. Can we be done, now?”

“Not gonna lie, I was hoping you've be more impressed. But whatever. Next on the agenda-”

“I meant, can we be done with the trip?” Rocket clarified.

“But we haven't done everything yet. We were gonna go hiking in the Rocky Mountains. We're gonna go to Disneyland! You all want to visit Disneyland, right?”

“Not even a little.” Rocket said, crossing his arms.

“I do not know what this 'Disneyland' entails,” Drax said. “But if it is similar to the other activities we have engaged in, then I, too, am not sure I wish to visit.”

Gamora was leaning against the railing and looking out over the canyon. She was Quill's last hope, and he looked at her with pleading, puppy dog eyes. She must have felt him staring at her, but refused to meet his gaze.

She sighed. “You planned this trip a very long time ago. Perhaps, as a child, these places seemed as though they would be more interesting.”

Quill clutched his chest. “Et tu, Brute?”

“What does that mean?” Drax asked.

“Who knows? Pete always sounds like he's talking through a mouthful of crap,” Rocket said.

“I know I planned this as a kid, but the Grand Canyon isn't some kiddy destination.” Quill pointed toward a nearby group; a man was trying to round up three kids into a huddle near the platform's edge so that a woman, presumably the kids' mother, could snap a picture with her primitive phone. “It's a trip for the whole family.”

“What family? But we're just a bunch of jerks stuck on this crappy dust ball together.”

“That's pretty much the exact definition of family.”

“You're delusional! I get it, you're an orphan. That's real sad and all. But it don't give you license to drag us around in your sad little orphan fantasy all week.”

Quill looked taken aback. “I just thought-”

“Ya thought wrong, Pete.”

After a stretch of silence, Quill cleared his throat. “I'm, uh, gonna go check out the gift shop. I'll see you guys later.”

Gamora glared at Rocket before following Quill. After they were fair distance away, Rocket saw their hands meet at their sides, fingers lacing together.

“Bye, Mom and Dad,” Rocket mumbled.

“You were extremely unkind toward our friend Peter Quill,” Drax said.

“You know me. If someone's pissing me off, I don't know how to pull my punches.”

“Nonetheless, I believe you should apologize. If you care about someone, you must try to preserve their feelings.”

“With all this lecturing, maybe you should be Team Dad instead of Quill.”

“That would be most inappropriate.”

Rocket grinned and pressed a whiskery kiss behind Drax's ear. “What? You don't want me to call you daddy?”

“Please desist from your incestuous allusions,” Drax said, leaning as far away as he could from Rocket considering the raccoonoid was perched on his shoulder. “You are making me ill.”

“Okay, okay,” Rocket said, chuckling. “Wanna go back to the RV and bump one out before Quill gets back with a bunch of lame souvenirs?”

Drax did, and they did. Unlike the exploratory reverence of their coupling the night before, this was a sweaty afternoon fuck, quick and dirty and deeply satisfying. Afterward they rinsed off beneath the shower's cool spray. The small shower was barely large enough for Drax to stand in by himself, but they fit together as long as Drax held him up and pinned him close against the wall.

Drax had his face buried in Rocket's neck, nuzzling wet fur and nipping at the skin beneath, when Rocket frowned. “Where does Quill get off, anyway?”

“I do not know,” Drax hummed against Rocket's jaw. “But I know where I wish to get off. Here,” he said, groping. “And perhaps here.”

“Okay, first of all, kudos. That was pretty clever wordplay. But seriously, what is that guy's deal? I know we're all kinda friends now-”

“Very close friends. We saved the galaxy together.”

“-BUT, hero stuff aside, it seems like a pretty big leap to suddenly start calling us a family. Why would anyone even want that?”

Drax frowned. “A family is a wondrous boon.”

“Yeah, but...is it?”

“Yes. It is a important to have people who will support you unconditionally, and who will provide strength when your own resolve is failing.”

“Did you feel strong when Ronan killed your family?” Rocket asked. When he saw the pain in Drax's eyes and realized how the remark had cut him, Rocket looked away. “Flark, I'm sorry. That's not...I didn't mean that.”

Drax hooked a hand around Rocket's neck and bumped their heads together just as they'd done in the storm, a pleasantly warm shower spray running between them instead of an icy deluge.

“No. When Ronan took Hovat and Camaria from me, I felt weak. I could not even protect those whom I cherished most. That is the price of having a family. To make yourself vulnerable.”

“I can't do that,” Rocket said. “I never want to feel that way again.”

Drax's brows furrowed. “Again?”

Rocket's eyes snapped open, and his ears flicked. “You hear that? Was that the door?”

Drax listened for a moment. “I hear nothing.”

“Still, we better wrap this up. This would be a hell of a way for the others to find us, huh?”

“I believe you are merely trying to evade this conversation, but you are also correct.” Drax let Rocket slide down to the floor.

Finding himself muzzle-to-crotch with a very naked Drax, Rocket gave an appreciative whistle. “Hey, this is convenient. I gotta keep this height difference thing in mind for next time.”

Drax chuckled as he stepped out of the shower. “I never knew you were such a filthy creature.”

“You love it.” Rocket slapped Drax's ass.

His prediction had been right; Drax had barely dried off and pulled his pants on, and Rocket was still dripping wet with the towel wrapped around himself, when the RV door slammed open and Quill stepped inside, arms piled high with a bunch of crap from the gift shop. Gamora followed, holding a very cheerful little Groot.

“I got everyone souvenirs,” Quill announced. Judging by his grin, he seemed to be over their argument. He tossed something to Rocket.

Rocket caught the orb. It was surprisingly heavy, and he lifted it with both hands. Inspection proved the object to be a miniature replica of the Grand Canyon encased in a glass sphere.

“Shake it,” Quill ordered.

When Rocket gave the orb a brisk shake, the motion stirred up a cyclone of white specks which had been clumped against one side. As Rocket watched, the flakes drifted slowly down over the canyon. He raised an eyebrow at Quill.

“It's supposed to look like its snowing,” Quill said.

Rocket opened his mouth to say something snarky, but caught Drax's pointed look from the corner of his eye. He bit his lip. “Ah...it's great, Pete. Thanks.”

“It marks an occasion. The wrapping up of our first road trip together.”  
“First? Does that mean we have to do this again?” Rocket asked. Then he realized what Quill had said. “Wait. You mean it? This is the last stop?”

“Second-to-last. We have to go one more place first, and then I promise we'll head back to New York as fast as these four wheels can carry us.”

Rocket groaned and started to protest, but Quill interrupted him.

“One last stop. That's it, that's all I'm asking. One more stop to humor an orphan, huh?”

“Alright, alright,” Rocket said. “You're more pathetic than me, you know that? And what's this place that's so important we still gotta go there?”

Quill smiled. “Home.”

 


	9. Never Going Back Again

The RV rumbled along the highway, winding slowly upward and out of the agonizing Arizona heat. The air conditioner ticked down from full blast, until by the time the road began snaking through the foothills, they had turned the AC off entirely and cracked open the windows to allow the mountain breeze to blow through the cab. As the sun began to slide down the western sky like a runny egg, road signs announcing their approach to Springville County cast long, spindly legged shadows.

They passed a small town at the splintered base of the Rocky's. Stony crags interspersed with scrubby trees cowered a safe distance from the road. A sea of yellow grass rolled uphill. In the driver's seat, Quill sang loudly along with the stereo.

“Been down one time! Been down two times!” Quill sang. “Hey, how are those sandwiches coming?”

“They are progressing,” Drax said, slathering a slice of white bread with mustard.

“None of that crap on mine,” Rocket said. He had his arms wrapped around Drax's neck and hung down his back like a cape, peering over his shoulder.

The raccoon, who was twined around Drax's ankles, chattered in agreement.

“And extra cheese on mine,” Quill called back. “Extra meat, too. And lots of mayonnaise. Actually, just make it a double decker.”

“You will get what you get,” Drax said. “And resist the urge to throw a fit.”

Rocket wanted to ask if that rule applied to boyfriends, but he wasn't sure that was the right word for their relationship. Besides, they were within earshot of the other Guardians. Gamora stood beside Drax. With painful slowness, she was placing slices of ham onto the bread.

Drax grabbed her wrist and looked solemnly into her eyes. “That is not the correct way to place the meats.”

Gamora snatched her wrist away. “It will be fine, Drax. It's just a sandwich.”

“If you refuse to do this task correctly, I will complete the picnic without your assistance.”

With a huff, Gamora threw her hands into the air and went to go sit on the couch. “Be my guest. I don't like to cook, anyway. That was the one good thing about being Thanos's daughter. There were always servants to bring our meals.”

“Slaves, you mean,” Drax said darkly.

“I am Groot?” Groot chirped.

His pot was sitting on the counter, where he had insisted Rocket put him so he could watch. He would need a larger pot soon. His roots bulged out of the dirt now, and anytime he tried to lean too far to either side, his weight rocked the pot up off its base. He'd been growing faster since they'd been on Earth. Maybe it was being planet-side: bathing in real sunlight instead of the glow from a solar lamp, thriving in the company of other green, growing things.

“He wants to know what makes you the sandwich expert,” Rocket said.

Drax deftly folded three slices of the deli ham onto a slice of bread before replying. “In my culture, it is customary for a father to cook for his family.”

“Seriously? Why?”  
“A mother's duty is to keep the little ones occupied. It is extremely difficult to prepare a meal when children are climbing all over you.” Drax gestured with his butter knife toward Groot, who was leaning so far over that soil spilled over the edge of his pot, then to Rocket hanging around his shoulders, then the raccoon, which had gotten tired of waiting for dropped scraps and was trying to scale his leg. “As you might imagine.”

“We're almost there,” Quill called. “You guys are really gonna like my house. It's not big or fancy or anything, but it's home, you know? I wonder if my old stuff is still in the attic. Oh, and we had this _amazing_ tire swing out...”

Quill trailed off as they crested the hill. He hit the gas to speed down an empty stretch of road, then yanked the wheel and slammed on the breaks, so they RV skidded to a stop in a dust cloud at the side of the road. The vehicle's lurch made Groot's pot slide across the counter, but Drax caught it before it could tumble over the edge.

“What the flark, Pete? I know you're eager to see your house again, but take it easy.”

Quill was already halfway out the door. When the others caught up with him, he was standing on the side of the road, his mouth pressed in a tight line. He stared with wide eyes.

Drax looked around. “I do not understand. Have you forgotten the location of your family's home? Where is this dwelling you have spoken of at such length?”

Rocket elbowed his leg. “I think this is it.”

“It was here,” Quill said. “Right here.”

Where Quill's family home had once stood, the land had been cleared. The bones of a two-story building rose out of the dirt, concrete struts through which Rocket could see dirty tiles, palettes of wood and other materials covered by tarps. Nobody seemed to be working on the site today. Hulking construction vehicles stood still with their cabs empty and their long necks bowed.

Yellow tape was strung between stakes around the perimeter of the site, with bold black words demanding, CAUTION. DO NOT ENTER. CAUTION.

A sign near the road declared: 'Coming soon to this location! Springvale County Mall!'

“If I'd come back a little sooner. Even a year ago.”

Gamora slipped her hand into Quill's. “You could not have known.”

“Sorry, Pete,” Rocket said. “This sucks.”

Quill slipped away from Gamora and strode forward, ripping the tape apart with both hands and continuing through without slowing. The ragged ends of tape flapped in the breeze, and Rocket hurried after him.

“The barrier demands that nobody enter this area,” Drax said. “It also advises caution.”

“This was _my_ house. They're the ones who've been trespassing.”

Quill pushed aside a clear plastic sheet and stepped into the unfinished building. Rocket followed him through, with Drax and Gamora close behind. The temperature plummeted in the shadows. The smells of plywood and dust made Rocket's nose itch. The interior was even larger than it had seemed from outside, stretching football field lengths to the other end, only interrupted by dusty, tottering stacks of building materials.

Once Quill stormed deeper inside, he stopped. He looked around with those same wide, stricken eyes. Rocket wondered what Quill was looking for. Something left over from his childhood, maybe. A tattered baseball card sticking out of the dirt, or the bent up spokes of a kid's bicycle wheel. But there was nothing. No evidence that a young Peter Quill had ever lived here.

Wiping his eyes with the back of one arm, Quill bent and picked up a brick. With the brick raised high, poised to throw it through a stack of glass panes which were leaned up on their edge, he stopped.

Rocket walked up beside him. “Do it, Pete.”

Quill shook his head. “It's stupid. Petty.”

“You're allowed to be petty and stupid sometimes. C'mon, you know you wanna. It'll make you feel better.”

A loud THWAK split the silence. Cracks spiderwebbed across the glass pane. Confused, Quill looked at the brick in his hand, as if he thought he might have thrown it after all.

Gamora picked up another rock, took two long strides forward and threw it as hard as she could. This time the pane of glass exploded into a spray of glittering shards. Grinning at Quill, she extended one arm with her hand turned into a fist.

Returning her grin twofold, Quill finally hurled his brick into the stack of glass, shattering another pane. Then he bumped his fist against Gamora's.

She pulled her arm back, whispering; “Boom.”

“I wish to assist in the destruction of this place. I am Drax the Destroyer!” Drax boomed, startling a flock of birds out of the rafters.

Running across suspended boards until the wood cracked, shouting across the huge, echoing spaces, bowling rocks through glass panes, ripping open bags of cement powder and emptying them from the second floor, and, in Rocket's case, pissing in every wheelbarrow he could find, the four friends smashed out a small, petty piece of revenge for Quill.

Drax lifted an entire flat of plywood over his head and hurled it down, smashing the wood into splinters and shaking the mall it its foundation. Sawdust rained over everything.

Soon after that, everyone came together to collapse, exhausted, on the main floor, panting with exertion but grinning. They laid on their backs and stared up at the sky stained pink through the girders criss-crossing overhead.

“How do you feel?” Rocket asked Quill.

“Hungry.”

* * *

The Guardians sat together on the mall's 'roof', their legs dangling over the edge. Even Groot was wedged between them, soaking up the last slivers of sunlight.

“I'm still glad we came,” Quill said, his voice muffled around a bite of ham sandwich. Drax had fulfilled his request for a double-decker after all. “And maybe it would have be weird if my house was still here. Without my mom, it wouldn't really be home, you know?”

“I do not usually understand anything you say, but in this case, I know exactly of what you speak,” Drax said.

“Anyway, I'm sorry the trip was so lame. The sights did kind of suck. And Rocket, you were right about squeezing everyone together on an RV not being a good idea. We've been fighting more than ever.

“Uh...yeah. I totally called that one,” Rocket agreed, trying hard not to look at up Drax, whose lap he was practically sitting in.

“It wasn't totally true that money was the only reason we never traveled as a kid. That was part of it, but mostly it was because we didn't have a big enough family to go on big family trips. My grandpa lived an hour away. Mostly, it was just mom and me. She was great, and she always did her best for me, but...”

Quill trailed off, staring into the sunset. The whole town was visible from their high perch. The dying light cast a reddish, sepia haze over the buildings, making the landscape look like an old photograph.

“I used to think about what it would be like, to have a bigger family,” Quill continued. “A dad. Brothers and sisters. Whenever my mom was busy, working all the time, I used to pretend...” Quill shook his head. “I know, it's stupid.”

Gamora took Quill's hand and held it in her lap between both of hers. “In my experience, siblings are overrated. Both of mine have attempted to murder me. However, you are not stupid.”

He laughed. “That's got to be the first time you've ever said I wasn't stupid.”

“You often say foolish things.”

“Well, that couldn't last.”

“But wishing to be part of a family is not stupid. When I was a girl, being raised by Thanos, I often dreamed of a real home. I wondered what would my life have been like, had I not had been stripped of everything I cared about. But I have no regrets. Everything that has happened has led me to you, my new family. I am grateful for that.

“Don't use the F-word around Rocket,” Quill teased. “Don't want him to have another tantrum.”

“Hardee har,” Rocket said, his tail twitching with annoyance.

“Anyway, thanks for letting me drag you into this trip. It was...I don't wanna say fun, exactly. But it was nice. So, I figure we if we start driving tomorrow, we can make it back to New York in a couple of days, as long as we don't make too many stops.”

Rocket cleared his throat. “You know, we ain't found a good spot to drop off that krutackin' raccoon yet. If we go back the way we came, we'll just be driving past the same places.”

Quill shot a surprised look at Rocket, which he pretended not to see. “Are you saying we should keep going?”

“And Groot! I mean, have you seen this guy?” Rocket lifted Groot's pot. “Look how big he's getting! He never grew half that fast on the Milano. I think somethin' about Earth agrees with him, though I can't imagine what. Maybe we should stick around a little longer. For Groot.”

“I must admit, I am curious about one of the destinations you have spoken of, Quill,” Drax said. “Perhaps it would be enjoyable to visit this...'Disneyland'.”

“What are you saying?” Quill asked.

Rocket rolled his eyes. “Ya gonna make me spell it out?”

“Nah. I wouldn't put you through the humiliation of admitting that you actually like us and want to spend more time with us. That's too much to ask.”

“Exactly.”

“But I have to know. What was the deciding factor? Did you actually enjoy some part of my...what did you call it? Sad orphan fantasy?”

There was one particular part of the trip that Rocket had enjoyed most. The part—or rather, the person—in question picked that moment to snake a hand around Rocket's back, to surreptitiously play with his tail. But, of course, Rocket couldn't say that.

Maybe they would come out with their relationship someday. Especially if Drax kept doing _that_ to his tail.

 


	10. Bad Moon Rising

Rocket wouldn't have relented on the road trip if he'd known how perilous the drive through the Rocky Mountains would be. The RV crept along, hugging the steep cliffs sometimes close enough to scrape the passenger's side mirror. Although all four wheels were on the road, it felt like the vehicle was hanging over the drop. The trees seemed tiny below. A toy forest scattered between mountains.

For awhile, Rocket would decide not to look. He'd huddle in bed, sick and miserable, with the sympathetic raccoon pressed against him and Groot's pot clutched tight in his arms. Then he would start feeling like it couldn't be as bad as he imagined, and go to peer out the window.

That was always a mistake.

During one stressed out huddle, burrowed beneath a heap of blankets, Rocket fell asleep. He slipped into the grips of a nightmare.

Sirens howled. In his dream, they no longer screamed tunelessly the way they were meant to, but blared the music playing over the RV's stereo. “I see the bad moon arising,” the sirens howled, almost cheerfully. “I see trouble on the way.”

Although Rocket had left the sheer, concrete walls of the facility behind, searchlights atop the walls pursued. A blinding beam swept over him. He tripped and sprawled in the dirt with a bark of warning to the others.

The sound of heavy footsteps grew louder. Blindly, Rocket scrambled to his feet. He grabbed his blaster from the ground nearby and lurched forward just in time to avoid getting blasted himself. A ball of liquid energy burned a hole in the pine needles where he had just been.

The automaton guards weren't trying to recapture him. Rocket was the most advanced specimen by far. If the guards hadn't been ordered to bring him back alive, then they wouldn't spare the others, either.

The others. Where were they?

Rocket lurched into the bushes and shimmied up a tree to get a better look.

Automaton voices droned through roughly mouth-shaped speakers. “Orders issued: Any subject beyond the perimeter is to be culled.”

“Affirmative.”

Rocket's heart beat so loud, he worried that the guard's sensitive auditory receptors would pick it up. From his vantage point in the tree, he could see a net slung over the rear guard's shoulder. Fur stuck out through the holes in tufts. Whatever—or whoever—was in the net, they weren't moving.

At least two of the others had made it. Rocket saw the pair of raccoons huddled by the tree line, paralyzed with fear.

“Targets acquired,” droned an automaton, aiming with his blaster.

Rocket had only used a blaster once: to dispatch the guard he'd stolen this one from. He pulled the trigger instinctively. The guard suddenly had a smoldering, sparking stub where his blaster-holding arm had been. His mouth opened in a dark rectangle of surprise.

Rocket whooped. “Yeah!”

The guards looked up, honing in on his location.

“Oops.”

He leaped down out of the tree, searching for the others in the dark. He found them quickly. They were still near the treeline, pinned in place by the spotlight's glare. The sirens moaned; “Don't come around tonight, it's bound to take your life. There's a bad moon on the rise.”

“Snap out of it!” Rocket hissed. “Follow me through the bushes.”

But the raccoons were frozen by panic. With the spotlights turning their eyes a solid, reflective red, they had never looked so unfamiliar to Rocket. They looked like dumb animals.

There was a KEE-REE sound as the other guard's blaster kicked. He missed, and the close call spurred the raccoons into action. They bolted: Not toward Rocket, but toward the tree where he'd just been perched. There was a long crack up the truck, and the two raccoons disappeared inside.

Rocket wanted to shout. He should warn them, follow them, do everything he could to drive them out: scratch and bite. But he did nothing. As the guards clanked forward and lifted another weapon, one Rocket had never seen before, Rocket merely crouched in the bushes and watched.

He watched as flames spewed from the weapon's muzzle. He watched the tree turn into a pillar of fire, and heard the raccoons' shrill cries-

“Rocket!”

Rocket lurched awake, sweaty from the nightmare and lying beneath so many blankets. Scrambling out of his nest, he looked around, blinking. The RV was still bumping along. It felt strange to wake with sunlight streaming through the windows, instead of in full dark, with Quill singing stupid Earth songs, brewing coffee, and bothering everyone awake before the crack of dawn.

It was Drax who'd woken Rocket. The man sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at him sadly.

“What?” Rocket demanded.

“It appeared that you were having a nightmare.”

Rocket scoffed and crossed his arms.

“I have observed that your sleep is often disturbed by nightmares.”

“You been watching me sleep or somethin'?”

“Yes,” Drax said.

Rocket's ears burned with a blush.

He was saved from having to answer by Quill calling from the driver's seat. “I'm gonna pull over here and see if this place sells air fresheners. The whole cab smells like puke.”

“Ain't my fault. Throwing up is a natural reaction to being trapped in a metal box, suspended miles over a drop that would kill every flarkin' one of us if you so much as twitch while holding the wheel,” Rocket said. “And shut off that krutackin' song. It's giving me a headache.”

 _Looks like we're in for nasty weather-_ the line was cut off as Quill clicked the music off. In the void of silence with the radio off, a shrill whistle whined through the cab.

Rocket's ears pricked up. “What is that?”

“Just the wind,” Quill reassured. “That's the other reason we're pulling over. The RV's been getting pushed around a little.”

“Pushed around a little?” Rocket echoed incredulously. “Are you serious?”

“We're here,” Quill announced, swerving into the parking lot.

They'd stopped at a hotel. It was the widest flat place Rocket had seen since they started into the mountains, and he was relieved to set foot on solid ground. The lodge was trying too hard to look rustic, but it reeked of money. Everything had a kind of expensive gloss to it. Rocket guessed that this was where overpaid humies went to feel like they were roughing it in the wilderness.

“I'm gonna go puke in a proper toilet. C'mon, Groot,” Rocket said, stepping out of the RV with Groot's pot in his arms.

“How many times do I have to tell you? Just say: 'I'm going to the bathroom'. Is that so hard?”

Someone tried to stop Rocket from going into the hotel, but he gave them the middle finger and they flarked right off. The bathrooms were just as posh as the rest of the place. The urinals were made of black marble and weirdly shaped. They gave Rocket the willies, so he pissed in the large potted palm in the corner, instead.

Groot gave him a withering look.

“Don't look at me like that,” Rocket said. “It's just a dumb plant. It ain't got thoughts and feelings like you.”

“I am Groot.”

“The raccoon's different. Who would piss on a raccoon?”

“I am Groot?”

“Nah. I'm not gonna give it a name. You name a thing, that's how you get attached. I'm gonna be getting rid of it pretty soon.”

“I am Groot.”

“Tch. What do you know?”

When Rocket returned to the parking lot, he found the others standing around in a loose huddle with half a dozen strangers. Quill waved him over.

“I signed us up for a cave tour,” Quill said.

“Alright.”

“For real? No complaining? No snarky, passive aggressive remarks?”

“Look, Pete. If the alternative to this tour is getting back in that RV and probably driving off a cliff, I chose life.”

Quill grinned and snapped his fingers. “There is it.”

The tour guide—a short, dark skinned woman in a day-glo orange vest—came over to the Guardians. “I'm sorry, but pets aren't allowed on the tour. The rule in these protected areas is to leave nothing behind and take nothing with you, and animals tend to break that first rule, especially.” She grinned apologetically.

“Huh?” Quill asked. “We left the raccoon in the RV.”

The woman looked down at Rocket.

“Oh. _That_ raccoon. He's a service animal,” Quill said, slapping Drax on the shoulder. “This guy's super blind. Without his service animal, he'd probably wander right off a mountain. I'm no lawyer, but I think that might give him a case against this hotel, legally? And don't worry. The raccoon wont cause any problems. He's trained.”

“I am not bli-” Drax started.

Rocket elbowed Drax in the knee. “Yeah, Lady. I'm with him.”

The woman's mouth dropped open, and her eyes widened until they nearly bulged from her head.

Quill glared down at Rocket. “Like I said. He's _very_ well trained.”

* * *

The cave turned out to be a tedious trek. The guide rambled on about limestone caverns carved out over thousands of years. Staleg-this, staleg-that. Everything smelled like farts. The ground felt lumpy beneath Rocket's feet, dusty and slightly yielding. It wasn't until twenty minutes into the tour, when their guide explained about bat guano, that Rocket understood why. After that, he handed Groot to Gamora and rode on Drax's shoulder.

Really, the bat shit had been a convenient (if disgusting) excuse to be where he'd wanted to be all along. With his face so close to Drax's ear, they could trail behind the group and talk without the risk of being overheard.

“If I'd known this tour was gonna be so boring, I might have preferred lying dead at the bottom of a mountain,” Rocket said.

“I am glad that you are not lying dead at the bottom of a mountain,” Drax said.

Rocket snorted. “What the hell was that? Are you flirting with me?”

One corner of Drax's mouth twitched in a slight smile. “Perhaps. But I agree, this tour is quite dull. And the caverns are extremely cold.”

“Well, she said it was gonna storm tonight. Might even be a blizzard. You should have worn a shirt for once.”

Drax gave a non-committal grunt.

“Not that you'll hear me complaining,” Rocket added, slapping Drax's bare bicep.

“I believe it is you who is flirting with me, now.”

“What are you lovebirds twittering about?” Quill said, slowing to fall in step beside Drax.

“We are just discussing-” Drax began.

“None of your business, that's what,” Rocket said, his ears flattened and his tail puffing out angrily. “If we wanted you to hear us, we would talk louder.”

“Yeesh, fine.” Quill jogged back up to Gamora and the rest of the group.

“Why do you act so unkindly toward Quill?” Drax asked.

“Better question: What would you rather do right now? Keep giving me the third degree about why I'm such an asshole, or sneak off to fool around?”

Drax considered the choice for a moment. “If I correctly understand the meaning of 'fool around' in this context, I would prefer the latter.”

“Turn here,” Rocket ordered.

Where the path split into two, the others continued down the larger path, their way illuminated by florescent bulbs strung along the walls. But Drax obediently turned down the smaller, unlit path. He had to duck to avoid hitting his head.

When he tried to stop, Rocket shook his head. “Keep going. If the anyone realizes we're gone, I don't want them to come back and see us.”

Rocket would later regret those words. It might have been the most idiotic thing he'd ever uttered, and with his big mouth, there were some real contenders.

But he didn't know that yet.

Drax obeyed again, forging deeper into the dark and turning a corner for good measure. The stone vaulted higher overhead here, allowing him to stand back up to full height. He stopped, leaned back against the wall and wrapped his arms around Rocket. The cavern was pitch black. They found each other easily in the dark and kissed for a long, wonderful while.

Then Rocket hopped down to try out the idea he'd had in the shower. Judging by Drax's ragged breathing and the soft, urgent grunts he failed to suppress, Rocket figured he was onto something good.

When they finished, they started back the way they'd come, struggling to button pants and notch belts in the darkness.

“Isn't this where we split off?” Rocket asked, after it felt like they'd been feeling their way down the tunnel for a long ways.

“Obviously it is not, or we would see the lights,” Drax pointed out.

“Yeah.” A terrifying notion sank icy fingers into Rocket's chest. “Unless the power went out. They said it was gonna snow. Maybe the storm picked up sooner than everyone thought.”

Darkness made the already tight tunnel feel even more cramped, squeezing in on Rocket from all sides. His breath came in short, sharp gasps, and he bore down on Drax's shoulder until the man hissed in pain.

Drax's arm curled up and around him. “Do not be afraid, little one. We will find our way back to the others.”

“Me? Afraid? You're out of your mind,” Rocket dismissed, but he didn't sound convincing even to his own ears.

They continued on through the pitch blackness for awhile, long enough for Rocket to be sure that either the power had gone out or they'd turned the wrong way. Like a deep sea diver descending, he felt crushed more by pressure every second. His pulse thwack-thwack-thwacked like a trapped animal's. Which, technically, he was.

A faint scent in the air made Rocket's nose twitch. Fresh air. Just a little, flowing in from somewhere ahead. Soon the tunnel began to brighten. Blue, natural light faintly revealed the cave's jagged walls.

“We're on the right track,” Rocket urged. “Keep going.”

The light grew brighter and brighter, until an oval of solid white at the end of the tunnel prompted Drax into a jog. They reached the opening and exploded through. Rocket sucked in a grateful gulp of fresh air. But when he looked around, his heart sank.

This wasn't the entrance they'd come in by. Whichever cave they'd emerged from, there wasn't even a trail leading up to it. A narrow, naturally formed ledge ran along the sheer cliff on one side. To the other side, a maze of jagged screes was impossibly dangerous to navigate. Wind howled through the rocks. The foretold blizzard hadn't arrived, but snowflakes whipped around them in light flurries.

“I am beginning to think it was not wise to leave the group.”

“You think?” Rocket sighed. “It'll be fine. The lodge must be around here somewhere.”

“Perhaps we could go back-”

“No!” Rocket blurted out. “That would be a bad idea. We'd just get more turned around in the dark.”

“Then we must go this way,” Drax said, gesturing toward the perilously narrow ledge.

Rocket swallowed. “Guess so.”

Before Drax stepped out on the shelf, he paused. “I know that heights trouble you, but I must ask that you resist the urge to regurgitate.

Wrapping his arms tightly around Drax's neck, Rocket tried not to look down. “I'll do my best, but I ain't making any promises.”

Slowly, with more exaggerated caution than Rocket would have thought him capable of, Drax sidled around the ledge with his face against the cliff, arms outstretched.

“There is something I wish to tell you, in case we do not survive.”

“I don't wanna hear it. We've been through way worse than this. We took down Ronan, remember?”

“My feelings for you-”

“Hey! I will pull us both off this cliff,” Rocket threatened. “You're gonna jynx us with that talk.”

Drax finally shut up, but Rocket found himself wondering what he had been about to say. He focused on that to avoid thinking about the winds ruffling his fur and pressing Drax flat against the wall, and the freezing flakes gusting around them, and the gut-twisting drop below.

After what felt like hours, the shelf turned around a small peak and broadened out. Drax to longer had to teeter on the edge, and he stepped away from the cliff face.

He turned, and Rocket came face to face with his own face.

His eyes shot open. He scrambled backward off Drax's shoulder, landing hard on the ground. His gaze fixed on his own reflection, Rocket saw someone else. One of the other subjects: Their face twisted, distorted through thick glass, mouth a dark 'O' silenced by liquid. A silent scream of pain and terror.

How could they be here? It was impossible, but there was no arguing with the surety that gripped him. They were here. The scientists, the experiments. Somehow the lab had found him.

Rocket scrambled further back.

“Rocket!”

Drax's voice cut through the delusion. Not soon enough. Rocket had backed up too far, and he slipped over the ledge.

Drax lurched forward. His outstretched fingers brushed Rocket's arm, couldn't wrap around in time, and then Rocket was past, plummeting down.

 


	11. Rocky Mountain High

Like the thick ice wall above, this wasn't a sheer drop. More like an extremely steep slope. Rocket tumbled down head over foot. He slammed into the ice and bounced against rocks. A stone outcropping bashed the air out of him.

Suddenly, Rocket was enfolded in a strong grip. Drax's arms wrapped around him in a protective embrace.

Drax kicked out his legs to brace against the rock wall opposite, but they were still falling fast. They hit the bottom of the chute hard. Drax rolled onto his side, groaning, while a disoriented Rocket spilled from his arms. Rocket sat up and crawled over to Drax.

“I'm sorry, oh, flark, I'm sorry,” Rocket said, worrying over Drax with shaking paws. “I freaked out.”

“Yes,” Drax wheezed. “You did.”'

“Is anything broken?”

Using the rocks to brace himself, Drax climbed to his feet. His exposed skin was mottled by blotches which would deepen into bruises, and he bled from a few nasty scrapes.

“I am intact,” he said.

Rocket looked up to where they'd fallen from. Directly in front was the thick slab of ice they'd slid down, which Rocket still couldn't look at without a prickle of panic crawling up his spine. A rock wall circled around behind them and on the left. There was a gap to the right, so narrow that even Rocket couldn't wedge through. A biting wind whistled through that crack. The only way out was up.

The circle of overcast sky at the top of the chute looked very small. They had fallen far.

A ' _Zzzzp'_ sound caught Rocket's attention. When he looked over, he saw Drax fumbling to unzip his pants.

“Again? This really ain't a good time.”

Drax ignored him. With his pants bagging, he reached into the legs. Hidden clasps were snicked open and Drax withdrew his twin blades from where they'd been sheathed against this thighs.

“When Quill ordered us to disarm due to Terran customs, I decided not to obey. I was concerned about the possibility of this scenario.”

“Probably not this scenario, specifically,” Rocket said. “If it was this screw-up you'd been prepared for, you'd have a rope, a lighter, and maybe some ice picks in there. What are you even gonna do with those things?”

In answer, Drax raised the first knife and plunged it high into the ice wall. The blades were no ice picks, but they must have been made of something strong, because the tip sliced a couple inches into the ice. Drax used the handle as a handhold to haul himself a couple steps up the slope. The knife held his weight. When he had pulled himself even to the first knife, he jammed the other into the ice higher up.

This one only slipped an inch into the wall. Maybe not even that. Rocket could see the tip gleaming through the first clear layers of ice. When Drax tried to pull his weight up, the blade broke free in a spray of shavings.

Drax grunted with frustration and tried again, this time driving the blade deeper. He tried to pull himself up, but something was wrong. Pain contorted his face. He dropped the handle and dropped, slipped, skidded back down the ice slope.

“What's the matter?” Rocket said. “It's your wrist, ain't it?”

Drax cradled the wrist—his left, and now that Rocket was looking for it, he could see the discoloration, the skin mottled muddy brown and deeper blues.

“Yes.” Spitting some alien swear word, Drax whipped around toward the ice wall and slammed his fist against it. The force of his blow caused a small avalanche of snow and a few loose rocks to tumble into the pit. Rocket winced, sure that more would follow and they'd be buried alive. But after a few moments, the barrage of debris stopped.

“Alright, let's not do that again,” Rocket said.

“What caused you to fall?” Drax asked. “You appeared to be frightened, yet I could not detect the source of your fear.”

Rocket shook his head. “Just thought I saw something, 's all.”

“Was it something we should concern ourselves with?” Drax scanned the mouth of the hole, brows furrowed.

“It wasn't real. I mean, it was real, but not anymore. And not here.”

Drax gave Rocket a blank look.

“I don't expect you to get it. I'm just...I've got a messed up head. If it's something the scientists scrambled up there, or an animal instinct, flight or fight kind of deal, I dunno. But sometimes I get confused. I get scared of stuff that's not there, when I see something that reminds me of...something else.”

Drax gave a slow nod. “I think that I understand. In sleep, I often used to hear my family's screams at the hands of Ronan, and wake with the thunder of battle in my veins. I knew I could not have heard them, but their voices sound extremely real.”

“Right, exactly! Except it happens when I'm awake, too. It's a pain in the rear.” He gestured around. “If you haven't noticed.”

“What did you see?”

After a hesitation, Rocket shrugged. “A ghost.”

Drax leaned back against the rock wall and slid down to sit, sprawl legged, on the ground. Something looked different about him, aside from the cuts and bruises he'd sustained from the fall, but Rocket couldn't figure out what.

“You okay?” Rocket asked.

“Now that our chances of death are even greater, I must attempt to speak with you again. The matter is urgent.”

Rocket hesitated. To hear what Drax had to say would be like admitting defeat. The others were probably looking for them by now. They might still-

“Please,” Drax said. “It is important to me.”

“Fine, whatever. Lemme get comfortable, if you're planning to bore me to death.”

When Rocket climbed into Drax's lap, he discovered that the man's skin was ice cold beneath his hands. Drax felt more like a stone than a living person. Suddenly, Rocket realized what had looked strange to him. Drax's skin had paled to a lighter, cornflower hue. His lips and the tips of his ears were nearly white.

“You're freezing.”

“It is snowing, and we are without artificial means to warm ourselves,” Drax said.

“No, I mean you're really freezing! You're not gonna last long like this.” Rocket worried over Drax's cold cheeks with urgent touches.

Drax caught one of Rocket's hands and turned his face to press a kiss into the much smaller palm.

“When I began courting you, I felt guilty about betraying Hovat,” he spoke against Rocket's sensitive paw pad. “Ours is a sole union.”

“You've only told me that about a million times. But, Drax, this is serious. You-”

“I have been weak. Unfaithful. From the first moment I saw you, I have harbored an attraction to you, both toward your form and your spirit. This feeling has many times caused me to wish that Hovat and myself had opted for an open union.”

Rocket's ears flicked. “Open union?”

“When my people wed, we make a choice. We may have a sole union, where two are bound exclusively, and must never court any other. Or an open union, better suited for groups of more than two who wish to pledge themselves to each other, or those who may have needs beyond a single partner.”

“Polygamy, you mean.”

“Yes. But I did not think...” Drax shook his head. “Hovat suggested that we might enjoy an open union. In my foolish pride, I opposed it. I was certain I would never need another, never desire anyone but her. I was wrong.”

“What's it matter? Why are you telling me this?”

“We may die here.”

“Don't say that. We're not-”

“You and I are not bonded, by vow or blood. When we pass into the next life, we will part, and be reunited with our own families. Once, that would have made me glad. I have wanted nothing more than to see Hovat and Camaria again. But now...I have been happy. You have made me happy. I cannot imagine any life, this or the next, without you.”

Rocket scoffed and gently slapped Drax's forehead. “You dork. It sounds like you're askin' me to marry you or something.”

“Yes,” Drax said, looking evenly into Rocket's eyes. “That is correct.”

The heat in Rocket's face should have warmed the whole pit. He opened his mouth, but no sharp retort materialized to fill the silence.

Finally, he choked out an answer. “That's nuts. You're just freaking out because you're freezing to death in a hole. Give the others some time, okay? They'll find us.”

Rocket really believed that. For the first hour, making easy conversation with Drax and trying to get rub some of his own body heat into Drax's icy skin, rescue seemed to be right over the horizon. Even as the first hour rolled into the second, Rocket kept glancing up at the hole far above, sure that eventually he would see Quill and Gamora looking back.

Three hours of waiting later, Rocket wasn't sure, anymore. Lapses punctuated their conversation. Drax kept loosing his train of thought. He wasn't looking so good, either. His skin had paled from gunmetal blue to a frosty silver. His body felt like a sculpture carved out of ice beneath Rocket's paws.

“Why are you so cold?” Rocket demanded. “What's wrong with you?”

“My planet is quite temperate. Its atmospheric composition makes it a great deal warmer than most other worlds.”

“Then why the krutackin' heck do you never wear a shirt?”

“It is a measure of...” Drax's eyelids had been growing heavier as they talked, and now they dropped shut.

“Wake up!” Rocket snapped.

Drax's eyes fluttered open. “-A measure of endurance,” he finished. “To bare skin in defiance of the cold is a proud custom of my people.”

“That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Your people are idiots, and you're the dumbest, most prideful idiot of them all.”

Drax chuckled. “I am in good company with you, then. My vile, foul-mouthed vermin.”

His arms drifted up to wrap around Rocket's back, to pull him close against shockingly, terribly cold skin. Fingers combed through Rocket's fur. Drax's touches were sluggish, just like his pulse. With his ear pressed against Drax's neck, Rocket could hear the slow thud. Thud. Thud of his heart.

Dangerously slow. And his eyelids were slipping shut again.

“Come on, Drax,” Rocket urged, shaking Drax's shoulder. “If you fall asleep, you really will freeze to death.”

Drax hummed noncommittally.

“I thought we had to do some vows or something, or else we'll never see each other again if we die. Right?”

“You rejected my proposal.”

“So you're just gonna let me go, just like that? Is that all I'm worth to you? Convince me! What's this afterlife supposed to be like?”

“Not afterlife. The next life. There, we will be reunited with everyone who has moved on. My family. Yours, as well.”

Rocket honked loudly, a 'wrong answer' buzzer noise. “Why would I wanna hang out with a bunch of mangy raccoons? Answer: I wouldn't. Try again. Are there explosives in the next life? And how big a boom are we talking?”

“There will be everything from this life, and greater,” Drax whispered. “You will enjoy it there. I believe that you will get along well with Hovat, if she is not too upset that I have amended our sole union. If she is angry, it will be worth it. To keep you by my side.”

“I ain't gonna see you in the next life, remember? Not unless you wake up enough to marry me.”

The wind picked up, filling the pit with a long, mournful moan. The sound reminded Rocket of the sirens. Those long ago howls still rose prickles of fear all over his body.

A snatch of his dream returned to him. _I hear hurricanes a-blowing...I know the end is coming soon._

Drax's head lolled back against the rocks, and he regarded Rocket through sleepy, slitted eyes. “You wish to make the pledge?”

“Sure,” Rocket said, forcing back the choked strain of emotion. “Yeah, you've convinced me. Your heaven, or next life, whatever. I'll be happy to meet you there.”

Drax smiled.

“Not today,” Rocket amended quickly. “Not yet. Pete and Gamora will find us down here. They'll save us.”

Even as Rocket spoke, he didn't believe it. The light flurries of snow had quickened, becoming dense flocks. Snow mounded on his tail and settled in the crease's of Drax's pants. Flakes settled on Drax's shoulders and head, too, where his skin was too cold to melt them. Rocket swatted them off like his life depended on it.

“So, come on,” he urged. “What's this pledge?”

“Rocket...” Drax reached up to touch Rocket's chest. His fingers were like the cold fingers of death. “With honor and gratitude, I pledge myself—mind, body and soul—to you. In this life and the next.”

His eyelids had begun slipping shut again, so Rocket barked; “Hey! You really wanna kick this thing off by falling asleep during our wedding? I thought this was important to you. Now, come on. What's next?”

“I pledge to revel with you in joyous times, and help bear your burdens in times of trial. And I pledge...from this day onward, our victories will be shared. Our hardships, halved. We will be stronger together than we have been alone.”

In spite of himself, emotion crested in Rocket's chest. This shouldn't affect him. The ceremony was just a way to keep Drax talking, to keep him awake. To save his life.

Otherwise, what was the point? To be tethered together in the next life? Rocket didn't believe that life awaited him after death. This was already his next life. Once, he been an animal, and died a hundred deaths on the operating table. He'd been reborn, self-aware and full of pain.

Mostly, this life had been hard. A third life might be unspeakable.

Drax cupped Rocket's cheek with one hand.

To Rocket's horror, his own hot tears spilled into Drax's palm, where they trickled down his wrist along the twisting path of a raised tattoo.

“I pledge to love you passionately,” Drax whispered, his voice faint and slurry. “To argue with you fairly and support you unfailingly. It is with a glad spirit that I enter into this union. Rocket. Do you pledge the same?”

“Yeah,” Rocket said. “'course.”

“Say it.”

“I pledge myself to you. In this life, in all of 'em. As many as we get.” Drax was nodding off again, so Rocket bumped their heads together. “Alright, what's next?”

As if this were any other day, any slow rise out of comfortable sleep, Drax combed his fingers through Rocket's fur and pulled him into a kiss.

When he broke away, Rocket's lips were left tingling. The kiss had almost felt like something supernatural; the binding of their souls, maybe.

“Should I say a bunch of sappy stuff about you, now?”

“You may, if you wish. But the ritual is complete.”

Wind sobbed through the gully. The intense cold stung the cybernetic ports on Rocket's back. Until now, he'd barely noticed the pain. It was an fierce, blistering cold, biting all the way through the metal and into his spine.

The snow, drifting down with deceptively gentle slowness, buried them nearly to the waist. They might be entombed before they could freeze.

There was no winning the battle against Drax's eyelids. They closed again, his head rolling back to rest against the rock. His heart beat unbearably slow against Rocket's palm.

Thump.

Thump.

“Are you even trying?” Rocket said. As soon as he asked the question, he realized the answer. Drax wasn't trying. Why should he? He'd said it himself. The next life would have all the same amenities as this one, except there he would be reunited with his family.

And Rocket had walked straight into the trap. In pledging his eternal union to Drax, he'd given him the very last thing he could want in the next life. He'd given Drax every reason to give up.

Rocket buried his face in Drax's neck, letting the mournful wind disguise his own sob.

“I think there's something down there.”

A voice so distant, Rocket might have imagined it. A hopeful delusion. But then another voice came, louder.

“Hello?” It was Gamora. “Rocket, Drax? Is that you?”

“Yeah,” Rocket answered. The word came out in a croak and was whisked away by the wind, so he tried again. “Yeah. Yeah! I cant believe you guys found us!”

“Holy shit. I can't believe it. What the hell happened to you guys?” Quill called down.

“Ain't it obvious? We fell into a flarking hole! Tell me you brought a rope,” Rocket shouted back.

“Of course we brought a rope. We're not idiots.” Quill leaned toward Gamora, and asked, “We do have a rope, right?”

Gamora rolled her eyes and produced a rope from a backpack. Together they tied it to a rock, tested that it was secured tightly, and tossed the free and down the pit. Coils of excess rope thumped into the snow.

“Drax,” Rocket said, shaking the man's shoulder. “Rescue's here.”

No response.

Panic stealing through him, Rocket pressed his palm against Drax's neck, searching for his pulse. For a moment of dizzying terror, he felt nothing. Then he found it. Very soft, like a single flap of a butterfly's wings. A long stretch of seconds later—too long—there came another throb. The barest flutter of a heartbeat.

“Pete, throw your jacket down here! Drax is freezing!” Rocket ordered. Turning back to Drax, eyes glassy wide, chest hitching, he leaned close to hiss into his ear. “You'd better wake the flark up. Don't make me a windower on my wedding night.”

“Do I have to?” Quill whined. “He's gonna stretch out the sleeves.”

Rocket ignored him, but continued to try to rouse Drax. “I know I don't have to say a lot of sappy bullcrap about you, but maybe I want to, okay? It's gonna be lame. You'll wanna be alive to hear it so you can make fun of me later.”

“Take off your jacket,” Gamora said.

“Fine.” A sullen Starlord stripped off his jacket, balled it up, and dropped it down the hole. It bounced twice off the ice slope and hit the bottom, sinking a few inches into fresh snow. “If he wrecks it, you owe me a new one.”

“Remember that time on Nowhere, when we'd all just met? And you drunk dialed Ronan, everything went tits up and Gamora ended up floating around in space. And Pete, that dumbass, he got out of his pod and floated right out to her. He was gonna die. I told him he was throwing away his own life, there was nothing he could do. But he didn't listen. Even if there was almost no chance, he was gonna try to save her. I didn't understand that. There'd never been anyone, no one, not even Groot, that I would'a jumped out of my pod for.”

It might have been Rocket's imagination, but he swore he felt Drax stir beneath him.

Urgently, Rocket continued. “I get it, now. If you were floating around out there, and I had a mask that could save you, I'd do it. I'd give you the air right outta my lungs. What I'm trying to say is...I love you. You alive to hear that? You wanna gloat about it?”

Still, Drax's eyelids remained closed. His pulse still frightfully muffled beneath his too-pale skin.

“I love you, but I don't have a mask. So I gotta do this. Don't be mad.”

Striking, snake-quick, Rocket sank his teeth deep into Drax's ear. Blood filled his mouth with the taste of hot rust. He jumped back as Drax jerked awake.

“About flarking time,” Rocket said, wiping Drax's blood off his own chin. “Get Quill's coat and put it on. We're getting out of here.”

After Drax dumbly felt out his wounded ear—'yeah, yeah, that was me, I probably saved your life so don't be ungrateful, just get an earring or something'—and pulled on the jacket, which immediately tore down both arms with a loud ripping sound—'What was that?' Quill called down. 'Oh, man, tell me that wasn't my jacket, anything but my jacket'—they scaled the rope: Rocket with dexterous ease, Drax hardly able to grasp the rope with his hurt wrist and sluggish, cold numbed fingers. All three of the other Guardians braced at the top and pulling as hard as they could were barely able to haul him up.

It wasn't far back to the RV. The trek back with Drax stumbling between Quill and Gamora was difficult and slow, so that was good. But it was also disheartening. If Rocket hadn't freaked out at the sight of his own twisted reflection, they would have found the lodge within half an hour.

As soon as they stepped into the RV, Groot waved at them from the kitchenette. “I am Groot!”  
“We're fine.” Rocket crossed the cab to pat the saplings head, delighted to feel a new roughness under his fingertip. Patches of Groot's sapling green bark were beginning to turn brown.

The raccoon scurried up to greet them. It scaled Drax's pant leg until he scooped the cumbersome beast into his arms. With delighted chirping sounds, it leaned up against Drax's shoulders to lathe his cold face in wet, snuffly kisses.

“Watch it,” Rocket warned. “I might be the jealous type.”

“Hey, Drax,” Quill asked, running warm water from the tap to fill a bottle. “I know you've had a hard day, but I was wondering. Would you consider letting me and Gamora take the big bed? You can have my bunk. It's barely farted in.”

“That's a lie, and you know it. Why do you even need the big bed?” Rocket demanded, before Drax could answer.

“It's...uhm, you know, I just-”

“Quill and I have begun plumming each other. Or is it figging?” Gamora looked contemplative. “I can't remember the word. I know it is the same name as some kind of Earth fruit. Dating?”

“Lemme get this straight. You guys are dating, and you wanna do all your figging and plumming in my d'ast bed?”

“That's...” Quill nodded. “Yeah, that's basically it.”

“Nope. Not happening. I'm sure you're real proud of shacking up with Gammy, Pete, but since your dumb tour nearly got me and Drax froze to death in a hole, we're going to retire to the big bed now; thanks.”

 


	12. Dancing in the Moonlight

The smell of burning herb filled the van. Smoke hung in the air so thick and acrid that it burned Rocket's eyes and sensitive nose, but his head felt so loose he hardly noticed. His thoughts seemed to float around the ceiling and lag minutes behind. He laid on his back, cradled in Drax's arm. The man was sprawled across the couch and half spilling on the floor, where the other Guardians slouched in varying states of drugged stupor.

“Where did you acquire this plant,” Drax asked. “It's fumes are causing me to experience loss of mental capacity.”

“Wouldn't guess it from them ginormogantic words,” Rocket said, chuckling.

“Some guy out back of Chuck E. Cheese sold it to me,” Quill said. “I was eight when the Ravagers took me away from Earth, so I never tried pot. But it seemed pretty cool in very special episodes.”

Drax glared suspiciously at the twist paper twist pinched between his thumb and forefinger. Then he brought the non-smoldering end up to his lips. After a deep suck, he pounded his chest and coughed like a shotgun's boom.

“Hey, keep it down,” Rocket said, taking the blunt from Drax. “Isn't this crap illegal or somethin'? Last thing we need is S.H.E.I.L.D up our asses for breaking some stupid earth laws.”

Rocket took a drag himself. Hot smoke crawled down his throat with nettle-like fingers, bristling down into his lungs. He held in the breath, like Quill had told them too, until he couldn't take the maddening tickle of the smoke anymore, and then he let it out in an explosive cough.

“I almost took us to Las Vegas,” Quill said. “But there's pretty much nothing to do there except drink and gamble.”

“Sounds better than being cooped up in this fart box.”

You remember the last time you and Drax got drunk together on Nowhere? You got in that horrible fight, and then Drax called up Ronan? If we went to Vegas, I'm sure you would have lost the rest of our money or gotten married or something.”

“That would be impossible,” Drax said. “We have already wed.”

“To Hovat,” Rocket said quickly. “He's already married to Hovat.”

“Yes. And to you, as well. I trust you have not forgotten our union so quickly?”

Quill's face popped up over the edge of the couch like a deranged jack in the box, his eyes wide and his hair mussed from rolling around on the floor. “Is that true? Did you guys tie the knot?”

Rocket scowled. “It's not really any of your business.”

“Are you ashamed of our union?” Drax asked.

“What? No! I just prefer not to broadcast my personal life, 's all.”

“I am Groot,” Groot piped up his perch near the window, which they had rolled down a crack to give the growing flora colossus some fresh air.

“C'mon, don't be that way. We would have invited you if we hadn't been trapped at the bottom a pit.”

“So it's true!” Quill said. “You crazy kids got hitched. Wow. I wouldn't have predicted that in a million years, but I'm guess if you're happy, I'm happy for you? Seriously, wow. Congrats.”

“Thanks,” Rocket said flatly.

“Just, it's really bizarre, isn't it? What do you even have in common? Besides a lack of respect for authority, your thirst for destruction and mayhem, and- okay, I guess you do have some common ground. But how does that even _work_? Like, in bed? You're so small!”

“Pete, why are you asking about the details of our sex life? Do you even want to know?”

“Fair point. Hey, you know what we should do? We should have a reception.”

“No thanks. We're good,” Rocket said hurriedly.

“Come on, Rocket,” Quill whined. “You didn't invite us to the ceremony, so you owe us.”

“What are you guys not understanding about this? Ice pit. Trapped. Freezing to death. I couldn't exactly get the invitations mailed out in time!”

* * *

But somehow they wound up spilling out of the RV anyway, in a tangle of laughing friends and smoke. Outside, the air was dizzyingly clear and cold. They'd pulled off the highway and parked on an unremarkable stretch of sand. Nobody rumbled past on the road.

The desert curved away like a bowl while a midnight sky arced overhead. Tar black, strewn with galaxies and punctured by a million, billion stars. The sight took Rocket's breath away. This was no view from space, with a windshield between him and the impossibly vast universe.

It was terrifying, and awesome. The stars so far away but seemingly close enough to touch. Rocket stretched out an arm with fingers splayed to comb through inky midnight.

He jolted when a piano began tinkling over the RV's stereo, loud through the windows cranked all the way down. Music shattered the reverent desert silence.

Quill's head popped through one of the windows, grinning, and flashed Rocket a thumbs up. Rocket returned the gesture, mystified.

Quill disappeared back into the RV, then re-appeared on the steps, stepping out to join the others in the desert. He cupped his hands around his mouth.

“I'd like to welcome the newlyweds Rocket and Drax to the floor for their first dance as husband and husband. They'll be swaying to the sensual rhythms of Dancing in the Moonlight, by Blood Harvest.”

“I don't dance,” Rocket said firmly.

Quill slumped. “Are you kidding? What's the point of a reception, then?”

“I have no idea! It wasn't even my idea.”

“You will not have to dance,” Drax said, grinning ear to ear, and swept Rocket into his arms so abruptly it made the raccoonoid squeak. “Your legs are much too short.”

“Gee, thanks. What are you doing?”

“Our first dance.”

With one of Rocket's hands clasped in his own, and with other arm wrapped around Rocket's back, Drax led them in a few deft steps across the sand.

“You're surprisingly graceful,” Rocket admitted.

“I am a warrior. A warrior must be light on his feet.”

Without having to do any of the work, and with the Terran drug still kneading his brain with relaxing fingers, Rocket had to admit it was kind of fun. Especially when Quill stopped gawking and decided to join them by whisking Gamora into a brisk dance. Even Groot wiggled along, where they'd left his pot in the RV's doorway.

Drax's face was split by a wide grin, and it made Rocket smile just to look at him.

“What?” he demanded.

“I is lovely, the way your whiskers shine in the moonlight. I wish that I could look upon your face every moment for the rest of my life.”

Rocket scoffed, though a blush burned under his fur. “You don't look so bad, yourself.”

* * *

An unknown amount of time later—minutes and hours hobbled past in a lopsided manner under the influence of Quill's drugs, so that Rocket couldn't seem to keep track of how long they'd been doing something or when they'd began—the Guardians had piled back into the RV, and flumped back down in their various prone positions.

Quill stared contemplatively at the ceiling.

“Do you ever worry about how many people we kill?” he asked.

Rocket looked over, one eyebrow quirked like a furry question mark. “Whaddya mean? Like, do we kill enough people? There's always room for improvement, but I think we do a pretty good job.”  
“What? No! I meant...killing people is bad, right? After I got out of the Ravagers, I swore I wasn't gonna live like that, anymore. But we've racked up a lot of casualties as the Guardians, too.”

“The Ravagers coerced you into taking innocent lives,” Drax said. “Now, you only cull those who threaten the galaxy and the safety of those living in it. That is different.”

“I guess. Still, I wonder if it makes us bad people.”  
“I am groot,” Groot said, in his high pitched voice. “I am groot. I am groot. I, am groot. I am...groot. I am groot. I am groot.”

“Whoah. That's the most I've heard Groot say since he sprouted. Translation?”

“He said that morality is a contrived concept,” Drax said, before Rocket could answer. “Rules which sentient beings agree to live by so that we may trust one another and coexist. But there is no objective measure of right and wrong. Everyone must come to their own conclusions about morality, and decide for themselves whether it is acceptable to end one life to save others.”

Rocket looked at Drax with wide eyes. His interpretation of Groot's speech had been almost dead-on. As far as Rocket knew, this was the first time Drax had ever understood Groot. It made Rocket's heart feel strange. Heavy, and too large for his chest.

Nobody spoke for a moment.

“Wow,” Quill said. “That's...that was-”

“Drax is just screwing around,” Rocket said. “Groot just says this weed stinks. He wants us to stop sucking up the fumes of his deceased relatives.”

“That makes more sense,” Quill said.

“I am Groot?”

“Yeah, I know,” Rocket whispered into the plant's 'ear'. “But I could tell they were thinking you sound like a nerd. We got a rep to protect.”

* * *

 

Time lurched past. Nothing changed besides where each Guardian sprawled, and the amount of herb in the plastic baggy Quill had bought in the Chuck E. Cheese parking lot. (There was significantly less, now.)

“I gotta piss,” Rocket announced.

He stumbled toward what he hoped was the toilet, aimed, and let loose his bladder in a terrific stream. Then he slumped back into the cab and flopped back down.

“Space, man,” Quill said.

“Space,” Rocket agreed, dreamily. “Space is awesome. It's like...my home. I'm homesick. I miss that feeling of drifting through the void, totally free-”

“I meant _give_ me space. You're sitting on my lap.”

“Oh.” Rocket stumbled out of Quill's lap and landed face down on the couch, next to Drax. He rolled over and grinned up at his husband.

“Hey, I meant to ask. How's your wrist?”

Unsheathing one of his knives with a soft 'snck', Drax stood. He twirled the blade in an arc with his hand on the injured side, and slammed the knife into one of the upper cabinet doors. Only half stuck out. The rest had gone straight through the particle board.

Quill yelped. “This is a rental!”  
“I have mended adequately,” Drax reported, yanking the blade out.

“That was fast,” Gamora said. “It's barely been a day.”

“My people mend quickly. When Camaria was young, barely taller that our raccoon friend-” Drax gestured toward the animal, whose ample weight was currently sprawled out on the floor so he looked like a pancake. “-she slipped from a tall tree and broke her arm in three places. She was very brave!” Drax bragged, beaming at the memory. “She barely wept as the doctor pushed her bone back into alignment. Scarcely a week later, after they carved the plaster away, I caught her sneaking back to that tree. She had taken my axe, and was attempting to cut down the tree in an act of vengeance.”

Rocket snorted. “What'd you do?”

“I helped her wield the axe, and together we felled the tree.”

Drax's gaze was distant and foggy with bittersweet nostalgia. Slowly, like an old man, he re-sheathed his knife and started for the RV door.

“Where are you going?” Quill asked, propping himself up on an elbow.

No answer from Drax except the metallic bang of the door slamming shut behind him. A few moments after that came a loud creak, and the whole RV lurched. High as he was, Rocket was certain the whole vehicle would roll over and crush him, and he clung to the coffee table with his heart tacking.

Only when he noticed the lazy raccoon giving him a strange look did Rocket relax his grip on the table. The RV hadn't capsized. Some of the pot smoke had been sucked out into the desert when the door was open, leaving the air in the cab nearly breathable again.

“Are you going to go after him? Gamora asked.

Rocket shrugged. “Seemed like he wants to be alone.”

“I am Groot,” Groot chimed in.

“Yeah, but-”

“I am Groot,” Groot said firmly.

“Fine! But if I get my head bit off, I blame you.”

Rocket stumbled out of the RV, tripping and nearly spilling into the sand. Fresh air filled his lungs with cool relief, soothing the weed's long burn. A few miles down the road, a gas station's red and white lights squatted along the horizon. The waxing moon bulged overhead. Drax was nowhere in sight.

“I did not wish to be rescued.”

Rocket jolted and whirled around.

Drax was sitting on the roof of the RV, his legs hanging over the edge. He extended a hand down to help Rocket up when he clambered halfway up the side of the RV, then hauled him the rest of the way.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I wasn't gonna come out here, but Groot wouldn't shut up.”

“From the mountain,” Drax corrected. “I had hoped to perish there.”

“Oh.”

“I had hoped that you would perish, as well.”

Rocket's first impulse was to be snap back, but then he remembered that Drax believed that they would have gone on to some second life together. He swallowed his scalding retort.

“Thanks?”

Drax's fist slammed down on the RV's roof. The metal barked loudly in the silent night, making Rocket jump.

“It was a selfish, shameful desire,” Drax boomed.

“To see your wife and kid again?” Rocket scratched his own cheek, ruffling the fur. “You're too hard on yourself.

“As much as I miss my family, to join them before I avenge their deaths would be dishonorable. I must first kill Thanos.”

Rocket sighed. “Revenge ain't all it's cracked up to be. You can't change the past.”

“I would not expect you to understand.”

“You think I don't know about revenge? I know pain, buddy, and I've taken it out on the folks who caused it. But hurting them didn't stop me from hurting.”

“If you were tasked with the choice again, would you show mercy? Would you refuse to take your revenge on those who hurt you?”

Rocket laughed; a raspy, muzzle wrinkling cackle that made him cough. “Not a chance in hell. Those bastards deserved each and every bomb I shoved down their throats.”

 _One boom every subject who didn't make it_ , Rocket didn't say. _The scientists considered themselves more valuable than their test subjects, but they were wrong. They were worth less than any animal._ But to say that would open the door to questions about the other experiments—Rocket's brothers and sisters and cousins—and then he might have to confess how he'd failed them.

So instead, Rocket simply leaned against Drax's side.

“Someday, if your desire it, you may shove an explosive device down Thanos's throat before I take his life,” Drax said, wrapping a strong arm around Rocket's back. “Now that you are a part of my family, you deserve the pleasure of avenging them.”

“Sounds like a great perk.”

Rocket bristled happily as Drax's fingers worked under the hem of his shirt, scratching his lower back and the base of his tail. A pleased chirping sound rose from his throat, unbidden. He slapped his hands over his muzzle and glared at Drax.

“You didn't hear nothin'.”

Drax's shoulders shook with a silent chuckle and he pulled Rocket into his lap. They sat in comfortable silence and gazed up at the bowl of stars.

“We haven't really had a moment alone to talk about the whole marriage thing,” Rocket said. “I wanna ask...and seriously, I'm not gonna be offended. I know you were under duress, and I don't wanna get you in trouble with the wife. If there's some kinda union annulment-”

“There is not. And if there were, I would not wish it. Unless you are unhappy with our arrangement?”

“It's an open union, right? So I can sleep with whoever I want?”

Drax's answer came a suspicious beat late. “If that is something you require, then yes. You may take other partners.”

“Drax?”

“I am here.”

“The idea of me screwing someone else is killing you, ain't it?”

“I am not in mortal peril.” Drax wrapped his arms possessively around Rocket's waist. “However, I am having an extremely adverse reaction to the thought.”

Rocket kissed Drax's wrist. “Then don't think about it. You're the only broad I wanna screw right now. If that changes, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“Why would your attraction to another cause us to cross a bridge? Does she live across a body of water?”

“Are you being deliberately dense?” Rocket teased. With deft, sensitive fingertips, he traced the patterns of raised tattoos up along Drax's wrist and up his arm. The story of his life, Drax had once called it. His entire history written out in some kind of alien Braille.

“When are ya gonna put me on here?” Rocket asked. “You've got your union to Hovat on Mount Kylos on your arm. Where's your union to me on Mount Poorly Chaperoned Tour and Slippery Flarkin' Ice Pits, huh?”

Drax's eyebrows furrowed. “That is a very aptly named mountain.”

“What did I marry?” Rocket groaned. “Getting sucked into your revenge scheme is fine, but I was hoping for some better perks.”

“Then perhaps you will be interested in these.”

Drax proceeded to growl some of the other 'perks' into Rocket's ears, until his fur was prickling, his toes curling, and his pants feeling comfortably tight. Somehow Drax's utter lack of metaphor made his dirty talk absolutely filthy. When he finished listing the things he was prepared to do for his mate, Rocket could barely form a coherent 'yes absolutely those all sound great let's do all of that right now'.

They screwed under the stars, exposed and vulnerable, and shaking the RV so much that an extremely high Peter Quill and Gamora clutched each other in the mortal fear that an earthquake was pulling the desert apart.

 


	13. Will It Go Round in Circles

Although the trail was wide enough for vehicles and had been tread upon by thousands of hiking boots, it was easy to believe that they'd left the world of backyard rodeos and cheap plastic booths and neon signs and tourist traps. They might have been walking through a forest on some unpopulated planet.

The trees, handsome and imperious, stretching so high overhead that Rocket couldn't see where they stopped, seemed oblivious to the humies ogling up at them. Their trunks bristled with shaggy red bark, like a prehistoric creature's fur.

In Rocket's arms, spilling out of his too-small pot, Groot stared around with eyes like dark lakes full of wonder. Why shouldn't he be impressed? These leviathans made even his larger form look like a twig in comparison.

“You're getting too heavy for this, pal,” Rocket said, shifting Groot's weight with a grunt. “I'm pretty d'ast ready for you to start carrying me around again, instead of the other way around.”

'The largest remaining contiguous old-growth coast redwood forest in the world,' bragged the plaques bolted to railings. 'Humboldt Redwoods State Park,' they said. Nothing but humies taking credit for the world's wonders. Quill read the plaques aloud, enthusiastically rattling off dry facts and measurements.

Rocket ignored him. Numbers were d'ast useful things, but they couldn't describe this place, or capture the way the boughs laced together like cathedral rafters, the reverent silence permeating everything in spite of Quill's chatter, or the golden light in constant shift across ground.

After awhile, Quill got tired of boring them with facts and went ahead with Gamora, walking as close beside her as she'd allow: the backs of fingers brushing surreptitiously.

They came to the most impressive, gargantuan tree yet. The leviathan squatted right over the trail. An archway was bored straight through the center, but trunk was so wide that the hole didn't compromise the tree's stability.

Rocket whistled. “Hey, Drax. Can you believe it? A doorway you don't have to shimmy through sideways.”  
“I may have difficulty, however, as your instincts will most likely cause you to take up residence inside.”

“Ouch! Slammed by the walking thesaurus. Un-be-flarkin'-lievable.”

The raccoon, perched on Drax's shoulder where Rocket would normally be, if he hadn't opted to lug Groot around, chirped its own scathing insult.

“Watch your mouth,” Rocket warned the raccoon. He readjusted his grip on Groot's pot, which had been slowly slipping through his arms. “We took you out of the RV, we can put you back.”

“I am Groot! I am Groot!”

“What's a matter? Did I bend a frond or something?”

“I am Groot!” Groot demanded.

“Alright, keep your bark on.” Rocket set the pot down on the dirt path with a soft grunt, then stood up with both palms on his lower back to pop his spine. “Ahh,” he sighed. “Ya ain't gonna hear me complain about a break. But why...”

He trailed off when he saw what Groot was doing. The flora colossus's tiny hands gripped the rim of the pot. Groot twisted, straining against the soil: first one way, then the other. Back and forth until the dirt bulged up and spilled over the edge.

Quill and Gamora had gone on ahead, but they turned around just in time to see Groot lift himself clear of the pot. In contrast to the rest of him, where the bark had turned rough and brown, Groot's legs retained the pale, subterranean shininess of roots. Caked on soil fell away as Groot stumbled free of the pot.

He stood on his own, wobbling on thin, fawnlike legs. Rocket started forward to help steady him, but Drax put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“You must allow him do this himself,” Drax said in response to Rocket's unspoken question.

“Look at his legs, though. Those things ain't gonna hold him!”

But they did. Groot lurched forward: one step, then another. With each perilously balanced step, lightning bolts of adrenaline jagged through Rocket, but each time, Groot managed to stay upright. He reached the wooden railing and braced himself against a post.

“I am Groot?” he said, grinning at Rocket.

“You sure are, buddy.” Rocket wiped tears from his eyes with the back of his wrist.

Although Drax also had his gaze fixed on Groot, there was a distant look in his eyes. The corners of his mouth turned downward in a slight frown.

With renewed confidence, Groot continued under the railing, off the trail and into the forest. The mulchy ground didn't seem to slow him at all. In fact, being able to dig his roots into the dirt seemed to make him more stable.

“Way to go, Groot!” Quill whooped, and hurtled over the railing to follow. “You're moving like a pro.”

Rocket ducked under the railing after him, while Drax stayed behind. The carpet of brown pine needles pricked his feetpads. When Groot reached a sprawling delta of redwood roots, he clambered over and reached the tree's trunk. He laid both tiny hands against the bark and stared up into the tree's boughs.

“I am Groot,” he greeting, smiling widely.

Golden motes of light squeezed out from between his fingers and beneath his hands. The spores drifted though the air and circled the tree in a joyous fairy-like dance. Two trees, talking to each other is their own incomprehensible language.

The raccoon leaped down from Drax's shoulder and scampered across the roots toward Groot. It thrust its wet nose against Groot's cheek, and the sapling trembled in a kind of silent laugh. Although the raccoon's middle had grown noticeably more wider since it joined them, it still moved nimbly enough as it circled the redwood's trunk, and came around on the other side to boop Groot again.

“Don't wander off,” Rocket ordered.

In defiance, the raccoon turned and raced away, kicking up drifts of loose pine needles behind it. When it reached another large trunk, it sniffed the hairy red bark, then vanished.

Rocket's heart lurched. Of course the raccoon hadn't really disappeared. It had merely slipped into a crack split through the tree and was crouching in a hollow inside. But that didn't stop Rocket from hurrying over, stubbing his toes and tripping over roots in his haste. He ducked to peer into the crack when he reached the base of the tree.

“Get out here,” he hissed. “Right now!”

The raccoon blinked out at him with dark, disinterested eyes. Rocket tried to reach in to haul the raccoon out, but the crack was too narrow to maneuver.

“Hey, maybe this is good,” Quill said, strolling over with his hands stuck in his jacket pockets. “We were planning to let the little guy go, anyway.”

“Come out!” Rocket shouted.

The raccoon flinched, squinting in dumb confusion.

“This place is literally a protected park. What could be a safer place for him?”

“I don't know!” Rocket snapped. “I don't know, but this isn't it.”

Still, the raccoon refused to budge, and the panic bled quicker through Rocket's veins with each second.

Rocket was hyperventilating, his eyes wide enough to show the whites all around. His muzzle twisted in an open mouthed snarl that only frightened the scared animal into flattening further back into the tree, but Rocket was fully in the grips of terror, unable to draw himself back from the brink. He could almost see flames racing up the trunk of tree. He could feel the heat against his face as the forest burned.

The sounds leaving Rocket's mouth had lost their shape and become the urgent bark of an animal. He scrabbled at the tree, reaching both arms in toward the raccoon but coming up short, just short.

A strong grip around Rocket's waist pulled him away from the tree and lifted him up. He was turned around and held tight in an embrace. Although he clawed and bit viciously, desperate to get away, the person held him tight.

“Got him,” Quill said.

The raccoon, scruffed by Quill and lifted out of its hiding spot, chirped in protest.

With his ear pressed against Drax's chest, the steady beating of the man's heart slowly but surely lured Rocket back from the edge. Along with clarity, disgust at his own weakness came flooding in.

“Lemme down,” Rocket mumbled. “I'm fine.”

Drax obeyed. He lowered Rocket to the ground without asking any questions about why he'd flipped out again, or why he couldn't leave the raccoon in this ideal place, or anything else. Rocket loved him for that.

“You kinda flew off the handle for a sec, buddy,” Quill said in the cautious tones of speaking to someone who might freak at the slightest provocation.

“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

After a hesitation, Rocket shook his head. “Thanks for getting the raccoon back for me, Pete.”

“But-”Gamora put a hand on Quill's shoulder. “Let him be,” she said.

Gamora put a hand on Quill's shoulder. “Let him be,” she said.

When Rocket met her eyes, she gave him a short nod.

Groot had been tottering after them with his painstakingly slow steps, and now he reached up to hold Rocket's hand. Rocket looked down at the sapling—not as far down as he used to, Groot was barely a head shorter than him now—and Groot looked back up at him with solemn, worried eyes.

“I'm okay. I promise,” Rocket lied.

Groot didn't buy it. The raccoon seemed to accuse him with its stare, too, from where it sagged like an overstuffed sack in Quill's arms. Accuse him of what, Rocket wasn't sure. Of not being able to lure it out of the tree? Of his idiocy for trying to lure it out of the tree at all?

Or maybe it judged him with impossible knowledge. An accusation on behalf of its kin who died in a long-ago fire, when Rocket had been too cowardly to even try.

 


	14. Just my Imagination

Back on the road, the RV rumbled through the California foothills. Mountain ranges snaked along on their left, while beyond the hills to their right lay a distant, unseen ocean. The yellow swells were dotted with low, scrubby trees, crisscrossed by barbed wire fences. Occasional constellations of cows were scattered across the hillside.

A brown cow grazing close to the road lifted her head to watch the RV pass. Rocket, perched in the window with his forehead pressed against the glass, waved at her as they whisked by.

The sun shining of his fur made him feel warm and relaxed. A song played softly over the stereo. _It was just my imagination running away with me; once again. It was just my imagina-a-ation..._ The melody soothed as surely as a lullaby.

Drax was already in their 'bedroom'. He'd seemed sulky since they left the redwoods, and had finally excused himself half an hour ago with the intention of taking a nap. Now, with a yawn and stretch, and a mumbled 'seeya' to Groot, Rocket went to join him.

But when he pushed aside the certain, he found Drax awake, sitting up in bed with Groot's discarded pot in his lap.

“Uh oh. Did I catch you bein' sentimental?” Rocket teased, clambering onto the bed. “It's okay. I'm pretty shook up, too. Our little boy is all grown up.”

Drax grunted and placed the pot back on the nightstand.

“You should have seen him this morning. He climbed into the sink for his daily watering all by himself. Scared me half to death, I ain't gonna lie. But he's surprisingly steady on those creepy little legs.” Rocket flumped into the cool, crisp sheets, wriggling under the blanket with a sigh of pleasure. “He's getting back to normal really fast, now.”

“Yes.”

Rocket quirked an eyebrow up at Drax. “What's the matter with you?”

“I am fine. Become unconscious, now.”

Part of Rocket wanted to follow that order. Sleep beckoned with pillow-soft fingers, singing with the voice of some old Earth entertainer over the stereo; _When her arms enfold me, I hear a tender rhapsody._

But, as accidental and ill-advised as their union had been, Drax was Rocket's husband, and that came with a measure of responsibility.

Rocket sat up. “Are you worried I won't need you for anything when Groot is back to full size? 'cos that's crazy. He might be able to carry me around, but there are plenty of itches he can't scratch, if you know what I mean.” Rocket elbowed Drax conspiratorially on the side, muzzle scrunched in a toothy, silent laugh.

When Drax didn't respond, Rocket elbowed him again.

“Like, sex stuff. That's what I meant.”

“Yes. I assumed.”

“So if that's not it, what's the matter? Why are you pouting in here?” Rocket climbed into Drax's lap and tried to look into his eyes, but Drax kept his gaze firmly averted.

“This aimless wandering has become tiresome. We have humored Quill for too long. Thanos is out there murdering more innocents while we waste time.”

“Yeah, okay. I get that.”

“You could not possibly 'get that', so do not try to empathize,” Drax said darkly. “You have never been in the position of needing to avenge someone.”

“I've avenged plenty.”

Drax scoffed.

Rocket's hackles bristled. “Hey! I got dead people. Just because I don't whine about them all the krutackin' time, the way you do...” Rocket grit his teeth. Hot, unwelcome tears stung his eyes. “I lost my family, too, you know. They never got to be like me, not smart or talking, but they were all I had. I promised to lead them out of that stinkin' laboratory. I failed. Okay? So don't tell me I don't get it.”

When Rocket opened his eyes, Drax was finally looking at him. In his expression, Rocket found none of the warmth or reassurance he'd been expecting. Drax's eyes burned with cold fire.

“Do not compare my family to your animals.”

Rocket recoiled, nearly falling backward on the bed in his hurry to escape. “How could you say that?”

Drax seemed to realize himself. He shook his head. “That was...impolite. I should not have spoken so harshly.”

“Ya think?”

“Those animals were your family. I should express sympathy.”

“Don't do me any favors,” Rocket snapped.

He slid off the bed, whipped aside the curtain and stormed out into the cab. He halfway hoped that Drax would call after him. But whatever was going on with Drax, he was too caught up in his own web of misery to pursue Rocket.

Rocket had done just fine with only himself and Groot during all those years before the Guardians. He didn't need anyone.

“Pull over,” he barked at Quill. “Now.”

“The next rest stop isn't for another ten miles. When we get there-”

“You got crap in your ears? Pull over NOW, right here. I gotta get the flark out of this box.”

Quill obediently turned the wheel to steer the massive RV to the side of the road. The vehicle had barely come to a stop when Rocket flung open the door and dropped off the step.

The day was weatherless, sunless; neither hot or cold. An overcast white sky stretched from one horizon to the other. Rocket marched up the hillside without looking back, wading through a sea of knee length dry grass. He ducked under a barbed wire fence and continued until he reached a dense thicket of those short, twisted trees, and strode into their shade.

There, in the pine scented dark, everything caught up to Rocket. His freak-out on the mountain, nearly leading to Drax's death. His subsequent freak-out in the forest. The nightmares which had plagued him more and more frequently despite the reassuring arms around him when he awoke.

And even those oldest terrors, so long locked away. Having showed his demons to someone for the first time, Rocket found no reprieve, and it seemed they would finally tear him apart. His face crumpled. Head bowed, fat tears rolled down his muzzle and darkened the dirt.

He didn't look up the first time he heard the chittering. He thought the noises might be his own, remnants of his inner animal slipping through his harsh, choked sobs.

But when the inquisitive chirp came again, Rocket snuffled and looked up through swimming vision.

The raccoon cocked its head as if to ask what Rocket's problem was.

“Who let you out?” Rocket asked.

Uttering another throaty chitter, the raccoon leaped up to balance briefly on its hind legs, then fell back down. It barked, an expression remarkably like a grin on its face.

Rocket couldn't help but grin back. He rubbed his cheeks to dry the fur. “That's a pretty good impression of me. Next time, you could try a little more devilish good looks and take-no-shit attitude.”

The raccoon barked a laugh, turned, and ran off.

“Wait!” Rocket said, bursting out of the shade after it.

The solid blanket of clouds tore at the seams. Warm sunlight fell through in shifting patches across the hillside. At first Rocket didn't see where the raccoon had gone. Then it leaped clear of the tall grass and dove back in, its fat, funny body cutting a trail through the field.

Rocket followed its distinctive receding tail until he found himself at the top of the hill. On the other side, the dry brush spilled into greener shoots. Trees, not like the stunted little desert clingers they'd been passing all afternoon, but huge, healthy, thriving oaks filled the valley, packed so densely together that Rocket couldn't see through their canopies. The grove curved along between the two hills like a shaggy green snake.

Without hesitation, the raccoon half raced, half rolled down the hill and into the treeline. Rocket followed.

The treasure which warranted so many burly trees to guard it turned out to be a creek. Water burbled cheerfully along over a bed of flat stones. When Rocket dipped a toe into the shallows, the shock of coldness electrified him. A school of tadpoles wriggled up to inspect the intruder, only to dart quickly away when the raccoon slammed its front paws into the water, splashing Rocket.

“You mangy rat!” Rocket exclaimed, startling birds into flight. Their break through the canopy sent sunlight falling through.

The raccoon regarded Rocket for a moment, its eyes glittering with mischief, then dashed off again.

When Rocket gave chase this time, it wasn't out of fear for the raccoon's safety. His heart hammered out that familiar hard and fast knock against his ribs, but it was different than waking from nightmares or forgetting where he was. More like kicking ass in a gunfight: a mix of adrenaline and whooping, wild exhilaration.

It was joy. Joy, distilled down to its purest form. Joy in shivering patterns of sunlight and shadow, in the creek's reflection of treetops, shattering into a million pieces by reckless, splashing paws. Joy in the raccoon's chittering and yapping, and in equal measure when Rocket swore back, spitting insults with maniacal glee. He never caught up, wasn't really trying to.

Rocket wasn't sure how far down the creek he chased he raccoon. Time lost meaning. They might have been scrambling up and down the banks, leaping through alternating patches of light and shadow for hours, or it might have been ten minutes. Eventually the raccoon broke away from the water and burst back out of the treeline, to sprawl, panting, in the grass on the side of the hill.

Rocket fell down beside it, rolling on his back to look up at the sky. The moth-eaten blanket of clouds was more ragged now. Wide expanses of blue pierced the white.

“We should go back soon,” Rocket said, after he'd caught his breath. “The guys will be worried about us, I guess.”

The raccoon didn't say anything, but Rocket huffed.

“Yeah, I know. They're a pack of ungrateful idiots. Drax especially. But they're basically family.”

Not the raccoon's family, though. Not really. His family probably looked like Rocket's: furry faces, dark, dimwitted eyes staring out from dark masks.

“You can't stay here,” Rocket argued with no-one in particular. “This place...”

Was perfect. No excuses jumped to his mind, no reason why the raccoon should have to stay with them in their rambling box of farts, when it could be here, climbing trees and hunting for crayfish and rolling around in the sunshine. Probably it would meet another raccoon. It would have its own family.

In lieu of excuses, a painful welt rose in Rocket's throat. He wiped his eyes furiously, exasperated by his own quickness of emotion. He was tired of crying.

“You should have a name,” he said. “What do you wanna be called?”

The raccoon sighed and rolled away from Rocket, apparently tired of his shit.

Rocket laughed. “Then I'm gonna call you Chuck, after after the place where we found you.” After a moment of thought, Rocket poked the back of the raccoon's head. It looked around at him wearily. “You're a well traveled raccoon, you know. We've dragged you all the way from sea to shining sea.”

The raccoon didn't appear to be impressed by its own resume. It yawned and stretched and closed its eyes.

“Right. Well, I better go.” Rocket stood up.

He tried not to look back at the raccoon as he made his way down into the trees' shade. By the time he crossed the water and started back up the dry slope on the way back to the highway, and risked a glance around, the raccoon was out of sight beyond the trunks.

Better that way. Easier. He'd already risked enough by giving the d'ast thing a name, but it didn't seem right to have come so far together and only think of it as 'the raccoon' or 'the d'ast thing'.

The sun peered out from the cloud cover like a baleful eye. Its heat began to make Rocket sweat beneath his fur. The hike uphill was long and arduous, and Rocket was panting by the time he mounted the rise. Below and too far away for the sound to reach him, cars whisked silently along the highway.

They hadn't chased very far downstream. He could see the RV still squatting by the side of the road a ways further along.

When Rocket reached the RV, the first thin he noticed was Quill's music thumping through the thin walls of the vehicle. Electric guitars whined and drums pounded. With a steeling breathe, Rocket opened the door.

Inside, Drax and Gamora were squeezed into the cooking area, apparently baking something. Flour covered Drax's arms to the elbow and he was punching a wad of dough. Quill stretched out on the couch with his arms folded behind his head.

“Yeah, I'm back,” Rocket snapped. “Don't get the idea I've forgiven you or nothin'.”

“Oh, good. Did you see Bandit?” Quill asked.

“Who the hell is Bandit?” Rocket asked.

“The raccoon. It ran out after you.”

“You named my raccoon? You can't do that. I already named it. And anyway, its not coming. I figure this place is as good as any, so I left if over that hill.”

“Here? Aren't you worried about the roa-”

The rest of Quill's sentence was cut off by a car's horn blaring, the screech of tires, and a sickening thump from the road.

 


	15. It Never Rains in Southern California

The moment they stepped into the building, prickles of panic swarmed over Rocket like a million biting ants. The vet's office smelled strongly of chemicals, rubber, and animal misery. The familiar senses threatened to drag Rocket right back to the lab. Only the solid weight of Chuck in his arms kept him tethered him to the present.

Even still, Drax bent down to place a reassuring hand on his head between his ears. “Would you like me to take the animal?”

“His name is Chuck,” Rocket mumbled, clutching the raccoon tighter.

A few other people with animals on leashes or in cages sat around on benches. When the Guardians had walked in, the humies looked up, boggling at what was apparently one raccoon carrying another. Some other time, they might have laughed at such a strange sight.

Except right now, the raccoon in Rocket's arms wasn't looking so good. Blood matted its fur on one side. It was still breathing, still peering around foggily, but it had become more and more lethargic since Quill had picked it up out of the road and carried it into the RV, where he'd gently placed it in a nest of blankets and slammed on the gas all the way to the nearest town.

Rocket hadn't even thought Chuck would survive all the way here, to this small California veterinarian clinic. But he had made it.

“I'll be right back.” Quill hurried across the waiting area toward the reception desk. He spoke with the woman sitting there—also staring with wide, mascara ringed eyes—in low, somber tones. The receptionist shook her head, but Quill persisted.

Rocket didn't try to haul Chuck up onto one of the benches, but sat down with on the floor at the end of the seats with the raccoon curled up in his arms. Drax sat down beside them. Rocket stroked Chuck's fur until, after a phone call and another go-round with the receptionist, Quill returned.

“We're in luck,” Quill said. “The vet's available right now. Come on, we're in exam room 3.” He jerked his thumb toward one of the doors.

“Thanks, Pete.”

This time, he allowed Drax to lift the raccoon out of his arms. Chuck was heavier than he'd been when they first picked him up from the alleyway behind his namesake restaurant.

He had managed to stay out the roads back then. He'd grown up in the bustling outskirts of New York City. So why had the d'ast idiot waddled into the highway now, when Rocket was so close to being absolved of responsibility?

The vet was a doughy woman with kind eyes and a halo of wild brown curls. She looked nothing like any of the scientists who'd dissected Rocket and cobbled him back together, which was good, because the past still hounded perilously close at his heels. In the exam room, the antiseptic smell was stronger. The sight of all that white tile and the gleam of metal fixtures nearly pulled him under.

A scared looking technician wearing thick rubber gloves arrived to carry Chuck away into a back room. The hackles rose all down Rocket's neck and back, but he fought to urge to snap.

The vet filled in the silence with a stream of upbeat, tentatively hopeful chatter. She explained that they would do some tests and what those would entail, but it was all a haze to Rocket. It was all he could do not to bolt from the room.

The vet left, presumably to do the tests she'd told them about. Then they waited.

Ten minutes? An hour? Longer? It seemed like forever to Rocket, unabashedly curled up in Drax's lap with the man's thumbs tracing comforting patterns across his much smaller palms. It seemed like they would be trapped in that awful room for the rest of their lives.

Eventually, the vet returned, without Chuck. Frown lines creased her pumpkin-like face. Rocket's heart lurched.

“Chuck is still with us,” the vet explained. Another painful beat of Rocket's heart later, she added; “But probably not for much longer, I'm afraid.”

Internal bleeding, she explained. Bone fractures. Several badly damaged organs.

None of that was the veterinarian's fault, but Rocket found himself leaping up and standing on the exam counter anyway, shouting in her face.

“Isn't it your job to fix animals? So, do your job! Fix him!”

“I wish I could, but there's nothing we can do,” the vet said. “The damage is just too severe.”

“If someone could do this to me, could turn me into _this-”_ Rocket gestured down to himself. “-then gluing a few broken bones back together should be easy! You could save him if you wanted to. You haven't even tried!”

“I'm sorry. I know this is hard,” the vet said, frustratingly kind. Rocket's snarling and spitting didn't phase her. But then, she must be used to animals lashing out. “My recommendation is euthanasia. Even with medication to control the pain, this isn't comfortable for Chuck.”

“You want us to kill him?” Rocket asked incredulously. “What kind of doctor are you?”

“He won't make it through the night. I'm suggesting that you let him go in a way that will be easier for him, but I understand that its a difficult choice. I can't make it for you.”

Rocket's shoulders drooped. He climbed down off the table.

“Rocket?” Quill asked gently. “It's up to you.”

The animal musk and chemical odors threatened to suffocate him. Rocket had to get out. Without a word, he pushed out of the exam room, into the waiting area, and then out of the front door, too, until he stood outside in the parking lot.

Cars rolled past on the road, grumbling and belching fumes. The clouds had sewn themselves shut, extinguishing the beams of sunlight which had danced across the foothills alongside Rocket and the raccoon. Now the sky was an overcast slate, threatening rain. A stiff wind ruffled Rocket's fur. The fronds of palm trees shivered in the cold.

It was as if the same storm had followed them from coast to coast. It had rained them out in the Grand Canyon, tried to murder them in the Rocky's, and, failing that, had stalked them here, now a sullen, disappointed drizzle of its former fury.

Rocket's shoulders shook and his paws came up to hide his face.

The door wheezed open, and Rocket almost snapped at whoever it was to leave him alone, but it was Drax, only Drax, who didn't say a word as he sat down on the sidewalk with his back against the stucco wall. Silence stood between them.

“I didn't know he followed me,” Rocket exploded. “Okay? I know it's my fault, I know that, but I swear I had no idea he wasn't back where I left him.”

“It was not your fault.”

“Then whose is it? Huh? Because from where I'm standing, I'm the only one who could have prevented this. But come on, tell me, who do you think is to blame? 'cos if there's someone else, I'll gladly blow his flarkin' brains out.”

“I insulted your family. I am the reason you requested that Quill pull over.”

“You...” Rocket shook his head. “How the heck could you have known? There's no way.”

“The same could be said to you.”

“That's different. I should have...I didn't...” A sob broke off whatever Rocket had been about to say, and Drax pulled him into his arms.

Drax scratched Rocket between the ears, the same way he had after they'd slain Ronan, when Groot had been shattered, splintered, his body strewn across the battlefield. Except Groot hadn't been dead. Groot had grown back.

By not leaving Chuck in the redwoods where a raccoon could have lived safe and happy, Rocket screwed this one up. He alone was responsible for his pet's untimely death. But at least he still had Drax and Groot. At least he had that.

A realization dawned over Rocket.

“Is that why you were so pissy this morning? With Groot getting so big, it must be sinking in.”

“The reason is not important. I treated you unkindly, and I am sorry.”

“Sure, yeah, you definitely did, and I accept your apology, but I get it. Ronan took everything from both of us. Your wife and kid, and Groot...Groot's the closest thing I have to family. But when he died, he came back.”

“And my family will not,” Drax agreed. “Yes. It was...sinking in.”

“It's like you said, though. They're not gone. Not all the way. Hovat's here.” He touched Drax's face, his thumb ghosting over the tattoo beneath his right eye. “Cheering your name. And here-” his other hand rested against Drax's bicep. “On Mount Kylos.”

Drax took Rocket's hand and guided it to his own chest, to rest over his heart.

Rocket looked down, blinking in confusion.

“Chuck will not be gone, either,” Drax explained. “He will be here. As with your family, you will carry him with you.”

Rocket sniffled. “I'm not sure I want to. All these d'ast animals are getting heavy.”

The door breathed open as someone tentatively pushed. Quill's face appeared in the crack.

“How are you doing?”

“How do you think I'm doing, Pete?” Rocket snapped. “I'm peachy. What do you want?”

Hesitation. Quill sidled outside, letting the door slip shut behind him. “Bandit- Uh, Chuck...I'm sorry. He's fading fast.”

“Thanks for the update.”

“If you want to say goodbye, you should do it.”

“We've been over this. We might have the same bushy tail and charming little paws, but me and Chuck ain't the same kind of animal. I can't understand him, and he won't understand me. I don't need to say goodbye.”

“Look, Rocket. I know what you're going through. I get it. But take it from a guy who's screwed this up. If you're not there, you'll regret it.”

With that hated lump smoldering in his throat and tears threatening, Rocket climbed to his feet and allowed his to friends escort him back into the vet's office. He returned to the exam room. He said goodbye.

And he let go.

 


	16. Lean On Me

Quill asked Rocket about a thousand times if he wanted to opt out of Disneyland. Even after they stepped through the gates, Quill asked if Rocket was definitely, absolutely posititve he was up for this.

“This is supposed to be the happiest place on Earth, right?” Rocket forced a smile. “I could use a little of that. So let's just do this, okay?”

“If you’re sure...then, good. We already paid, and that was about the last of our cash. We might have enough left for lunch.” But after peering into his wallet, Quill grinned sheepishly. “Uh...it would have to be a really light lunch. All I've got is a five.”

“What!” Rocket barked. “How are we supposed to get home?”

“I figured I'd call S.H.E.I.L.D to pick us up. They can't really refuse, can they? I heard someone call us a 'security risk' and a 'public safety hazard', so I think they'll be up for whatever gets us off-planet.”

“Our reputation precedes us,” Rocket agreed.

An ocean of humies pressed all around them. Children laughed and shouted, harried parents rushed around, trying to herd their offspring. A man stomped past, and Rocket barely yanked his tail out of the way in time to avoid it getting stepped on.

“Watch it!” Rocket snapped, but the man was already swallowed up by the crowd.

Rocket clambered up to Drax's shoulder so he wouldn't get lost in the confusion. From his perch, Rocket got a better look around at Disneyland. An enormous castle presided over the park, glittering in the mid-morning California sunlight. In the distance, a tram glided along a raised rail. The main area branched several different ways. Colorful themed signs over the avenues directed parents and hyper children toward the attractions.

Quill handed Groot's pot to Gamora, then pulled out a pamphlet he'd received from the woman who'd waved them into the park. He opened it like a road-map, studied it briefly, and jabbed a finger at the first ride he wanted to check out.

They set off in that direction, following the signs.

“Who is that woman? Is she the matriarch of your land?” Drax said, pointing at a humie who looked out of place in a poofy, pale green dress, her hair pulled up and haloed by a silver tiara.

The woman gave an uncertain smile and waved at them.

Quill scratched his head. “Nah, she's just playing one of the characters. I don't know which one, though. I've missed a lot of movies. Maybe I'll get a VHS player for the Milano and get caught up.”

Another character bounced up to them, this one in full head-to-toe mascot costume. The mouse favored them with an uncanny valley grin, waving both white gloved hands in an exaggerated greeting.

“Mickey!” Quill cried.

He dropped the park map and flung himself into the mascot's arms for a crushing hug.

The mouse seemed relatively unfazed by being hugged by an adult man, and even patted Quill on the back. Quill had tears in his eyes when he finally released the mascot.

“Yeesh,” Rocket muttered, leaning away. “If you just wanted to molest an insulting caricature, we didn't have to cross the who d'ast country. There was a Chuck E. Cheese back in New York.”

“This is lovely work.” The woman with the poofy dress and tiara had wandered over, and she was fawning over Drax's tattoos. She squeeze his bicep appreciatively.

“Thank you. I am fond of them, myself,” Drax said.

“Back off, lady,” Rocket said. “He's married.”

She jerked her hand back and gaped at Rocket. “That's...that's a really good costume.”

“You like it?” Rocket grinned. “The teeth are real sharp.”

“Uh...huh...” She turned to Gamora, who had retrieved Quill's pamphlet from the ground and was brushing the dust off it. “I like the details on your face. What did you use for that gloss?”

Gamora blinked and touched her own cheek. “I was born with these marks.”

The princess laughed. “That's fair. I'm not supposed to break character, either. But sometimes it's hard, you know?”

“Yes,” said Gamora, who clearly did not know.

“A little advice? Try a touch of pinker shade around your cheeks, even on green. It adds depth of color and makes the paint a little less waxy.”

“You think I look waxy?”

“I, uh. I'll just get out of your hair.” The woman flashed a forced grin and hurried away to greet some children, lifting her over-poofed skirt to aid her speedy escape.

“People sure are friendly here,” Rocket grumbled.

“Happiest place on Earth, remember?” Quill quipped.

“Everyone's got a different definition of happy, I guess.”

Although Rocket found, over the course of the afternoon, that Disneyland met his own definition more than he'd expected. The rides, which seemed tacky and babyish from the look of the loading bays, surprised Rocket. Some of the coasters ripped the air out of his lungs and had him clutching Drax's hand with white-kuckled intensity, other times howling with a fierce, adrenaline fueled joy, his voice whipped away by the wind rushing past, drowned out by the car rattling on its tracks.

He even softened toward to atmosphere of the park. It was silly, with its bright plastics and cheerful music twittering from strategically placed speakers, but it was kind of fun, too. Even Gamora found herself infected with a smile that even Quill's nonsense couldn't quell. In fact, she seemed almost enamored by his boyish excitement.

Each to his own, Rocket supposed.

His own was Drax, who parted the crowds like a knife through butter. The woman at the entrance had let him through when he'd returned her admonishments with a long, piercing look, but eventually someone flagged them down and made him don a park-provided shirt. This, like the one at Chuck E. Cheese, barely stretched around Drax's broad shoulders, and he looked like he would rip out of the garment if he so much as flexed.

Which, of course, he did.

“No one can flex like Gaston!” challenged one of the costumed humies, this one with arms nearly as huge around as Drax's, and a sinister grin to match any axe murderer's.

The instant Drax clenched his fists and popped his muscles, there was a loud ripping sound as the shirt shredded across his arms and chest.

Even Gaston seemed impressed.

“There's a gift shop over there,” Quill jerked his thumb down 'Main Street'. “They'll probably give you a new one, for decencies sake.”

“Think of the children,” Rocket agreed, slapping Drax's bare chest.

As they stepped into the gift shop, Rocket blinked in the dim interior. The shock of coolness after spending all day with the sun shining against his fur made him dizzy, and it took a moment for him to recover. He blinked away the swimming motes of light.

The crowd was thinned out in the shop. Only a few shoppers milled around, bossing kids from one aisle to another and holding up merchandise to inspect.

“I'm gonna stretch my legs,” Rocket said, climbing down off Drax's shoulder.

“Can you take Groot? My arms are getting tired.” Quill asked.

“Can't you walk now?” Rocket said to Groot.

“I am Groot.”

“It's not that crowded in here. You're not gonna get lost.”

“I am Groot!”

“Okay, okay, you big baby. Come here.”

Quill lowered the pot to Rocket. When he dropped it into the raccoonoid's waiting arms, Rocket oomphed and staggered. He could see why Quill didn't want to hold him anymore. Groot really was getting too heavy to carry around. But the flora colossus didn't want to get separated, and Rocket couldn't blame him. Out there in the park, he'd probably have been trampled into matchsticks before the Guardians could notice he was gone.

Rocket split off from the group. He wandered up and down the rows of merchandise, studying the objects with squinted eyes.

It all seemed pretty inscrutable to Rocket. Why did humies need so much junk?

One of the shelves was lined with glittering orbs. Some, like the one Quill had bought for Rocket back at the Grand Canyon, contained miniature landmarks: Many of the iconic castle, but some held the entrance, the tram, and other locations around the park. Many more of the globes encompassed figures.

Rocket recognized some of the characters as the weird humies he'd seen around the park. There was the princess in the pale green dress, kissing a frog. Here the muscular man who'd lost the flexing contest with Drax, favoring them with his toothy, sinister grin.

“I am Groot,” Groot said, reaching out to touch one of the orbs. His tendrils curled lovingly around the glass.

Inside, the figure of a girl knelt on the roots of a tree. The tree had a human face and the features of a kindly old woman. She smiled beatifically down at the girl. It was the tree woman which Groot fixated on.

“Kinda looks like she could be your mom or something, huh?”

Groot didn't answer, only stared into the globe. His expression made Rocket need to look away. Everyone's got dead people—that's what Rocket knew. But he didn't know anything about Groot's dead people. His family, his whole race. Groot never talked about them.

With his eyes averted, Rocket's gaze fell on another globe, where it stuck. This sphere was smaller by half, and contained a single figure: a raccoon. The statue peered back at Rocket with a loony grin and cheerful dark eyes.

Rocket set Groot's pot on the floor and picked up the globe between both paws. He shook it. White flakes swirled in the water, obscuring the scene. When he stopped shaking, the fake snow drifted down over the raccoon.

Rocket stared into the orb for a long time.

“Hey.”

Rocket jumped and nearly dropped the bauble.

“Flarkin' hell, Pete. Don't sneak up on a guy.”

“Sorry. Drax found a shirt, he stared the guy down until he gave it to us on the house. He's got a real talent for that.”

“He gets me with it every time.”

“Anyway, we can get out of here whenever. What did you find?”

“Nothin',” Rocket said hurriedly, sliding the globe back onto the shelf.

But Quill saw what it was, and the look of pity on his face made Rocket embarrassed.

“We haven't really talked about...you know. What happened,” Quill said.

“About how I got Chuck killed, you mean?”

“No! That's not...Don't beat yourself up, okay?” Quill reached past Rocket and picked up the glove containing the raccoon. He shook it up and watched the storm for a beat, then turned the globe over in his hands, studying the bottom as well.

“I know it prob'ly seems like sorcery to your primitive brain, but I'm pretty sure its just glitter in gel,” Rocket said.

“I'm looking for a price tag.”

“Don't buy it,” Rocket said. “I don't need-”

“When I got picked up off Earth by the Ravagers, after my mom...” Quill swallowed. “After she died, I lost everything. My home. My family. Besides the clothes I was wearing, I only had one possession to my name.”

“Your tape.”

“Yeah. The mix my mom made for me. When I listened to those songs, it was easier to remember the good times, instead of just the end.” Quill handed the globe down to Rocket. “Four dollars and ninety-nine cents. The tax might be a problem, but we can sic Drax on the cashier if he gives us any trouble. A minute or two of his stare should do the trick.”

Rocket tried to look unaffected despite the welt of emotion stinging his throat. He gave a curt nod.

By the time the sun began staining the western sky pink, everyone was starving and grumpy, and Rocket was fed up with tiny hands touching his fur with sticky fingers. Quill put in the call to S.H.E.I.L.D.

A west coast based team choppered in so quickly, the Guardians barely made it to the front gate in time to see black suited, sun glass wearing agents striding up the entrance.

“That's our ride,” Quill said, grinning. He waved both hands high over his head to flag them over. “Guys! Over here!”

“I doubt they will miss us,” Gamora said. “We don't exactly blend in with this crowd.”

The agents crossed the cobblestone courtyard toward the Guardians. They hesitated when they drew near, muttering to each other in voices too low to be heard over the throngs of tourists. Rocket felt their eyes on him in spite of their dark glasses.

“Oh yeah, almost forgot. You know how I called someone from the vet's office?” Quill said.

“Yes?”

“That was S.H.E.I.L.D. I might have told a little white lie to get them to foot the bill.”

“What did you tell them, Quill?” Rocket said through gritted teeth.

Before he could answer, the agents reached them. They looked over the group, favoring Rocket with an especially long, critical stare.

“I see that you've made a full recovery,” one of them clipped.

“Uh, yeah,” Rocket said. “I'm fine now. It was really just some scrapes.”

“The bill detailed charges for several tests, including x-rays and blood panels.”

“They were _nasty_ scrapes.”

“And a euthanization.”

Rocket grinned. “Boo?”

Quill clasped one of the agent's shoulders companionably. The agent looked down at Quill's hand like it was a spider which had crawled up her arm.

“Alright, I can see you're too clever to buy this load of BS,” Quill said. “The vet visit wasn't for Rocket. It was a different raccoon.”

The agent raised an eyebrow. “A different raccoon,” she repeated.

“Yeah.”

“You expect me to believe that the four thousand dollar bill you incurred and that S.H.E.I.L.D generously paid was for some other, unrelated raccoon?”

“Four thousand?” Quill repeated incredulously. He whistled. “No wonder that vet seemed so happy. She's making good money.”

“What did our agency really pay for?” the agent demanded.

“I told you. Our other raccoon had a medical emergency. And could you be a little more sensitive? We're all still pretty bummed out.”

The agents looked at each other, as if telepathically deliberating about whether to leave this group of idiots to fend for themselves and save S.H.E.I.L.D the trouble.

“Look, you don't have to believe us,” Quill said. “But what are your options? You just gonna leave us for humanity to deal with? Or would you rather launch us back into space?”

As usual, it was infuriatingly difficult to argue with Quill's logic.

 


	17. I Can See Clearly Now

The Milano smelled like grease, scorched rubber, and metal, with undertones of alien body odor. Even after Rocket cobbled the ship back into working order and launched, even when they were flung unceremoniously out of Earth's atmosphere and launched into the star striped vortex of FTL travel, Rocket still found himself sucking down deep, grateful lungfuls of that familiar stink.

It smelled like home. And it felt so, so good to be home.

Dwarfed by the overstuffed pillow he hefted in both arms, Rocket entered Drax's quarters.

“What are you doing here?” Drax asked, propped up on one elbow on the bed.

Rocket scowled. “That's a hell of a way to greet your husband. I'm moving in, obviously.”

“Into my quarters?”

Drax sounded worried. Rocket supposed he could understand. The room was small—not as small as Rocket's own, which was really a glorified closet with only enough space for his child-size bunk, with Groot's pot at the foot—but tight enough that Drax's own cot, stretching from one end of the room to the other, was barely large enough for him to stretch out.

“Where else?” Rocket asked.

“In my culture, it is customary for mates to visit each other's chambers for the purpose of copulation, but to sleep separately.”

“You're just making that up because you don't want me kicking you in my sleep and shedding all over your bed.”

Drax opened his mouth to argue, but Rocket tossed the oversize pillow up onto the bunk, where it landed on the man's face.

“Skip the excuses. _My_ people usually sleep in a tree, all together in a heap. You gonna deny me my biological instincts? Now scooch over.”

Rocket had a bag slung over his shoulder, and now he shrugged it off. From it, he retrieved the souvenirs he'd picked up on the trip. The light sword from Chuck E. Cheese. The Grand Canyon snow globe. The other globe, which Rocket held for a lingering moment, staring at the raccoon encapsulated in the bubble, before sliding it onto the shelf above Drax's bed.

Viscous gel contained within glass. A raccoon trapped inside. Rocket hadn't made the connection before, when they'd bought the seemingly innocuous souvenir in honor of the Chuck, but now he couldn't help but draw comparison between the snow globe and the tanks which had held him and the other raccoons in the lab.

A chill rippled up his spine, raising his fur. Drax smoothed Rocket's hackles with one palm.

“I was impressed by your willpower in the veterinarian’s clinic. You did not slip into a fugue state. That must have been extremely difficult.”

Rocket shrugged, willing away the heeby jeebies. He wrenched his gaze away from the bubbled figurine.

“Come here,” Drax commanded.

He opened his arms, and Rocket crawled into his embrace.

They kissed, and although it wasn't the first time, it stole Rocket's breath just the same. They made love without the reverence that marked their first couplings. Now, comfortable in each other's company, Rocket rode Drax with short, teasing thrusts, hissing with pain and biting Drax's thumb when the man's hips jerked upward, driving too deep.

“I'm barely four feet tall, you d'ast brute,” Rocket scolded through huffed breaths, slipping back into rhythm. “I don't have room for all that. You're lucky I can even take this.”

“Forgive me. Do not think I am ungrateful. I suppose I have your many previous partners to thank for your anatomic ability to submit in this manner.”

With his blood pumping hard in other places, leaving less for his brain, it took Rocket a moment to piece together Drax's meaning. When he did, he laughed.

“Are you saying I'm stretched out because I'm a slut? Seriously, how did you ever sweet-talk Hovat into enough sex to make a kid?”

But Drax must have done something right, because despite Rocket's admonishing, he continued grinding in Drax's lap until finished a few minutes later with a high, choked bark.

And for all Drax's talk about his people sleeping in separate beds, he wrapped one tree trunk thick arm around Rocket and fell into an easy sleep almost at once, snoring into Rocket's ears and making them flick.

“Love you,” Rocket muttered, when Drax was safely asleep and unable to hear it.

As Rocket dozed off, he could feel the raccoon figure in the darkness. That was crazy. But in the twilight of half-sleep, the certainty stole over him that that the raccoon's cartoony eyes had fixed on the bed, on him. Frowning, ears flattened against his skull, Rocket sank deeper into the mire of unconsciousness.

In sleep, Rocket found himself back in the redwood forest. Sunlight spilled between boughs of hoary tree trunks. The spicy scent of pine needles permeated the air.

The raccoon figure, with its unsettling cartoon grin, stirred in the shadows between two redwoods. But when it stepped forward into a pool of sunlight, Rocket saw that it wasn't the figure at all. Familiar dark eyes blinked back at him.

Chuck. Intact, and somehow alive.

Rocket staggered forward, dizzy with relief.

As he approached, the raccoon recoiled. It shrank against the carpet of brown pine needles, eyes twinkling with suspicion. It seemed not to know Rocket.

“Hey, buddy, it's just me,” Rocket crooned, holding out a hand for Chuck to sniff.

“I know who you are,” the raccoon chittered in an unnatural, distorted voice, half human and half animal. “Do you think I'd so soon forget my killer?”

Rocket stepped back. “What?”

“Not just mine. Your family's, too. The others who were counting on you. Dumb, helpless animals. Did you feel bad, leading them to slaughter? Did their deaths buy the time you needed to escape?”

“That's not what happened,” Rocket said. “I didn't mean for them to get caught.”

“But you weren't sorry, were you? Not then. You felt-”

“Don't,” Rocket begged.

“Relieved.”

“Shut up!”

“You felt relieved,” Chuck continued, pitilessly. A twisted grin showed off a mouthful of sharp white teeth. “What kind of freedom could you have, lugging those animals around? Hungry, stinking, shitting, living reminders of what you really are. You dreaded it.”

Chest heaving, Rocket hefted a fist sized stone from the forest floor and hurled it at the cheshire cat grin gleaming from the tree's shadows.

The rock struck: point blank, between Chuck's eyes. But instead of a sharp yelp and hasty retreat, the raccoon shattered like glass.

Rocket's own face stared back at him through a hundred eyes, each blinking in confusion. He turned away from his shattered visage.

The half-constructed mall had replaced the forest. Plywood beams sprang up where there had been redwood trunks. Instead of jays and finches in the canopy, pigeons murmured from the rafters. Shafts of sunlight still slipped through the roof, but the darkness of the expanse dwarfed the light, swallowing it up.

Something moved in that darkness.

“You tried to absolve yourself of me, too,” the thing in the dark said, its voice echoing in the cavernous space. “Your mistake was not escaping quickly enough.”

“It was an accident. I forgot about the road.”

“I forgot about the road,” the thing mocked. “Why would you? You never cared. How long do you think raccoons live in the wild?”

“How should I-”

“Three years. You know the answer, because you looked it up on this planet's primitive version of the galactic network. Three years in the wild, up to twenty in captivity.”

Again, Rocket had no rebuke. It was true. He had searched for information when he'd hadn't known what to feed Chuck. He'd seen the life expectancy. And he had turned away from Chuck in the foothills, knowing full well that the raccoon would probably only survive for another year or two.

He had walked away.

Now, he ran. Toward the rectangle of light, out of the mall. But there was nothing outside the mall. Only a sheer drop.

Rocket fell, head over foot. He hit the ground with a whump.

When he gathered himself, he found himself face to face again with Chuck, or the thing that wore Chuck's skin in this inescapable nightmare. The thing leered out at him from the ice wall. High above, a gray circle of sky peered down into the hole like an unfeeling eye.

“Selfish,” the raccoon accused.

“Coward.”

“Murderer.”

Rocket covered his ears. “STOP!”

But he couldn't block out the thing's words, he could hear them in his own head. Suddenly, like he had in the real pit, he recognized the face in the ice. It had never been Chuck.

It was his own reflection. Only himself.

His reflection grinned back at him, eyes twinkling with malice. _You let them die._ The words thundered in Rocket's head like a bad hangover. _YOU WERE GLAD. YOU WANTED TO BE RID OF THEM. YOU WANTED TO BE FREE. YOU-_

“Rocket.”

A real voice, barely a whisper over the storm of Rocket's self-loathing. But enough to make him uncover his ears. Enough to make him turn around.

Drax gazed down at him, eyebrows furrowed with concern.

“You appear distracted.”

“Sorry,” Rocket said, blinking. “Guess I zonked out. What were you saying?”

“I asked if you actually enjoyed any part of my 'sad orphan fantasy', as you so tactfully put it.”

Rocket turned to see Quill and Gamora on his other side, silhouetting by a red sky. Quill smirked down at him.

The question struck Rocket as familiar.

Below them, beyond the edge of the roof, Quill's hometown stretched out. But when Rocket looked, he saw that the sleepy burb in the Rocky Mountain foothills had been replaced by the entire coast to coast span of the United States. Landmarks sprawled in a confused jumble. The Grand Canyon snaked around icy, jagged peaks. Cars as small as toys came and went from the Chuck E. Cheese parking lot. Disneyland's iconic castle glittered like a mirage on the horizon.

Illuminated by the ebbing sunlight, Rocket took stock of the souvenirs he'd picked up at each stop. The physical ones: the two globes and the cheap plastic light sword, and the intangible ones, too. A sore spot in New Mexico, where a pissed off twin had stepped on his tail. From the mountains, a husband. And from the foothills of California, another scar on his already battered heart, and a song about rain he would never be able to listen to.

“The rodeo,” Rocket decided, finally. “I stomped that smug cowboy's shnarglies so hard, his kid's kids will be sterile.”

Quill laughed. He had laughed before, too, on that real day, when they had all perched along the unfinished roof.

“I am Groot?”

Rocket's brows furrowed. “Eh?”

Groot, from his pot in Rocket's lap, waved his arms urgently. “I am Groot, I am Groot!”

Confusion made his head ache. Rocket scrunched his eyes shut. When he opened them, the surreal Terran landscape had vanished.

Groot's worried face still filled Rocket's vision, but now it was Drax's dark bedroom behind him. LED numerals on the control panel clock blinked: 2:06 am. A nonsense number, existing only to regulate sleep. There was no real time in space. No sun touched the Milano with its light. They were too far away; mere stars.

“I am Groot?”

“Yeah, I'm up.”

“I am Groot.”

“Drax might not be so happy about it. He wasn't thrilled when I wanted to move in, and I'm his husband.”

Groot wilted.

“Alright, alright, climb on in here. But don't be poking me with your twigs or nothin'. I'm getting enough of that from the other side.”

 


End file.
